Constantia

Best of all Constantia proved —
Best of all her truth I loved;
Free as air and fixed as Fate,
Fitted for a hero's mate.
Beauty dear Constantia had,
Fit to make a lover mad;
Every grace she 'd gently turn
Strong to do and swift to learn;
Truthful as the twilight sky
Was her melting, lustrous eye —
Full of sweetness as the South
Was her firm and handsome mouth.

Child of conscience, child of truth, —
Treasures far outlasting youth, —
Would my verse had but the power
Again to shape that brightest hour
When beneath the shadowy tree
First I pressed the hand of thee!
While the sighing summer wind
Toned its murmur through the mind,
And the moon shined clear above,
Smiling chaste, like those we love.

I can ne'er be loved again
As I was on that sweet plain,
Though I sigh for fourscore years,
Watering all Earth's sands with tears.
I am old — my life is sere;
Beauty never can appear
As it was when I was young,
Love and joy upon my tongue.
Give me Passion, give me Youth!
More than all, oh, give me Truth!
Let the beauties steal my heart
In their deep, entrancing art —
Yet the safer shalt thou prove,
Dear Constantia! in my love.
How the feverish glances fly
Off the dark, the laughing eye!
Mark the brown and braided hair,
To weak hearts a fearful snare.
I have seen the Southern skies
Shut their soft, love-laden eyes,
Seen the floor of those calm seas
Rippled by the orange-breeze;
But I fled such azure dreams
For thy frozen Northern streams.

If my heart is growing old,
Thine is neither worn nor cold;
If my life has lost its flower,
Thine still wears its crimson dower,
And the early morning beam
Pulsates on its golden stream.

May a cold, sepulchral breeze
Every feeling in me freeze,
Stab me through and through with pain,
If I ever love again!
More — let all the Graces go,
And the Muses thickly sow
Harsh and crabbed seed all o'er
Helicon's harmonious shore, —
Subtle Venus snap her zone,
Phaebus carve me into stone, —
If I leave Constantia's side!
My joy and hope, my peace, my pride.
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