Riley Love-Lyrics | Page 5

that lies asleep, nor
hears
Nor heeds not any voice nor fall of tears.--
And I sit singing
o'er and o'er and o'er,--
"God called her in from him and shut the
door!"
[Illustration]
HER FACE AND BROW

Ah, help me! but her face and brow
Are lovelier than lilies are


Beneath the light of moon and star
That smile as they are smiling
now--
White lilies in a pallid swoon
Of sweetest white beneath the
moon--
White lilies, in a flood of bright
Pure lucidness of liquid
light
Cascading down some plenilune,
When all the azure overhead

Blooms like a dazzling daisy-bed.--
So luminous her face and brow,

The luster of their glory, shed
In memory, even, blinds me now.
HER BEAUTIFUL EYES
O her beautiful eyes! they are blue as the dew
On the violet's bloom
when the morning is new,
And the light of their love is the gleam of
the sun
O'er the meadows of Spring where the quick shadows run

As the morn shifts the mists and the clouds from the skies So I stand in
the dawn of her beautiful eyes.
And her beautiful eyes are as mid-day to me,
When the lily-bell
bends with the weight of the bee,
And the throat of the thrush is
a-pulse in the heat,
And the senses are drugged with the subtle and
sweet
And delirious breaths of the air's lullabies--
So I swoon in the
noon of her beautiful eyes.
O her beautiful eyes! they have smitten mine own
As a glory glanced
down from the glare of the Throne;
And I reel, and I falter and fall, as
afar
Fell the shepherds that looked on the mystical Star,
And yet
dazed in the tidings that bade them arise--
So I groped through the
night of her beautiful eyes.
[Illustration]
WHEN SHE COMES HOME
When she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself,
the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble--yes;
And
touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor
dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart's sweet distress.


Then silence: And the perfume of her dress:
The room will sway a
little, and a haze
Cloy eyesight--soulsight, even--for a space:
And
tears--yes; and the ache here in the throat,
To know that I so ill
deserve the place
Her arms make for me; and the sobbing note
I
stay with kisses, ere the tearful face
Again is hidden in the old
embrace.
[Illustration]
LET US FORGET
Let us forget. What matters it that we
Once reigned o'er happy realms
of long-ago,
And talked of love, and let our voices low,
And ruled
for some brief sessions royally?
What if we sung, or laughed, or wept
maybe?
It has availed not anything, and so
Let it go by that we may
better know
How poor a thing is lost to you and me.
But yesterday I
kissed your lips, and yet
Did thrill you not enough to shake the dew

From your drenched lids--and missed, with no regret,
Your kiss
shot back, with sharp breaths failing you:
And so, to-day, while our
worn eyes are wet
With all this waste of tears, let us forget!
[Illustration]
LEONAINIE
Leonainie--Angels named her;
And they took the light
Of the
laughing stars and framed her
In a smile of white;
And they made her hair of gloomy
Midnight, and her eyes of bloomy

Moonshine, and they brought her to me
In the solemn night.--
In a solemn night of summer,
When my heart of gloom
Blossomed
up to greet the comer
Like a rose in bloom;
All forebodings that distressed me
I forgot as Joy caressed me,


(_Lying_ Joy! that caught and pressed me
In the arms of doom!)
Only spake the little lisper
In the Angel-tongue;
Yet I, listening,
heard her whisper--
"Songs are only sung
Here below that they may grieve you,
Tales but told you to deceive
you,--
So must Leonainie leave you
While her love is young,"
Then God smiled and it was morning
Matchless and supreme

Heaven's glory seemed adorning
Earth with its esteem:
Every heart but mine seemed gifted
With the voice of prayer, and
lifted
Where my Leonainie drifted
From me like a dream.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]
HER WAITING FACE
In some strange place
Of long-lost lands he finds her waiting face--

Comes marveling upon it, unaware,
Set moonwise in the midnight of
her hair.
[Illustration]
THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW
I
As one in sorrow looks upon
The dead face of a loyal friend,
By the
dim light of New Year's dawn
I saw the Old Year end.
Upon the pallid features lay
The dear old smile--so warm and bright

Ere thus its cheer had died away
In ashes of delight.
The hands that I had learned to love
With strength of passion half

divine,
Were folded now, all heedless of
The emptiness of mine.
[Illustration]
The eyes that once had shed their bright
Sweet looks like sunshine,
now were dull,
And ever lidded from the light
That made them
beautiful.
II
The chimes of bells were in the air,
And sounds of mirth in hall and
street,
With pealing laughter everywhere
And throb of dancing feet:
The mirth and the convivial din
Of revelers in wanton glee,
With
tunes of harp and violin
In tangled harmony.
But with a