Dora

                              I.
She was a child, and little knew
     Of the world-wisdom lived in books: 
Sweet, quiet thoughts, and wishes few,
     A still soul smiling in her looks: 
Fancies that seldom soared too high
     To chase the bee or butterfly, 
And from their unambitious flights 
Brought new and innocent delights; 
Joys deep and pure as summer skies 
And gentle as my Dora's eyes,
     These were her dower; nor these alone, 
But a calm, pure, and saintly grace, 
Which gave a glory to her face,
     A charm peculiarly its own, 
That made you, as you gazed on her, 
Half lover and half worshipper.

She loved me — yet I scarce know why;
     My speech had naught of courtly grace, 
And care and grief had dimmed my eye
     And left their record on my face, —
     That face, so pale and passionless,
     I little deemed could ever win 
From beauty's lip the soft caress, 
Which if it be unrighteousness,
     Would make a saint in love with sin! 
If heaven hath more of thrilling bliss 
Than I have drank from Dora's kiss, 
'Tis well that heaven is placed so high 
And veiled from our mortality;
     Else, with its rapture's rich excess,
     Thrilled through and through with blessedness, 
We should grow early mad, and die.

She loved me — and as Winter's snows
     Melt to the breezy touch of Spring; 
As the gray east with rose-light glows
     Before Aurora's wakening; 
As, with a passionate surprise 
That floods with happy tears her eyes, 
The young wife feels the first faint stir
     Of the new life that soon shall be 
Of a new joy the minister, —
     A baby, crowing on her knee. — 
And, dreaming of her unborn boy, 
Is saddened by too deep a joy, — 
So from my soul the icy thrall
     Was melted by her love away; 
So hope, revived, threw over all
     Of life a brightness as of day; 
So, trembling with its joy's excess,
     My spirit to its centre shook, 
And from its wild tumnltuonsness
     A shade of conscious sadness took.

                              II.
I know not how, but o'er me seemed
     To come a horror deep and dread, 
And in that pulseless gloom, I deemed —
     Or did I see? — my Dora, dead! 
A burning weight was on my brain, 
And all my nerves were fiery pain, 
And wild, weird fancies through and through 
My swooning soul, like demons flew! 
Methought I stood by Dora's side, — 
Dear Dora, but a three weeks' bride:
     The deathly white was on her lips — 
Sweet lips, by mine so often kissed —
     And o'er her eyes the death-eclipse 
Slow-gathered with its veiling mist. 
Yet still on me her glance was turned
     With such unutterable love, 
It seemed her saintly spirit yearned,
     While angels beckoned from above, 
To pour its gift of peace divine, 
Its rapture and repose, through mine !
                                   O God!
     Thou didst not need her — though more fair
     Than any of thine angels are — 
For heaven's high courts by throngs are trod, 
Whose white wings in the golden fires
     Flashing, their rosy splendors throw 
Down through the blue, while starry lyres 
Swept by a thousand hands of flame,
     And vital with sweet sounds, o'erflow 
With hallelujahs to thy name!

O might not these for heaven suffice, 
When one could make my paradise? 
And she was mine — my angel! Why, 
God! didst thou let my Dora die?