THREE FLOWERS OF MODERN GREECE.
O SISTERS! fairly have ye to rejoice,
Who of your weakness wed
With lordly might: yea, now I praise your choice.
As the vine clingeth with fair fingers spread
Over some dark tree-stem,
So on your goodly husbands with no dread
Ye cling, and your fair fingers hold on them.
For godlike stature, and unchanging brow
Broad as the heaven above,
Yea, for fair mighty looks ye chose, I trow;
And prided you to see, in strivings rough,
Dauntless, their strong arms raised;
And little loth were ye to give your love
To husbands such as these whom all men praised.
But I, indeed, of many wooers, took
None such for boast or stay,
But a pale lover with a sweet sad look:
The smile he wed me with was like some ray
Shining on dust of death;
And Death stood near him on my wedding day,
And blanched his forehead with a fatal breath.
I loved to feel his weak arm lean on mine,
Yea, and to give him rest,
Bidding his pale and languid face recline
Softly upon my shoulder or my breast,—
Thinking, alas, how sweet
To hold his spirit in my arms so press’d,
That even Death’s hard omens I might cheat.
I found his drooping hand the warmest place
Here where my warm heart is;
I said, “Dear love, what thoughts are in thy face?
Has Death as fair a bosom, then, as this?”
—O sisters, do not start!
His cold lips answered with a fainting kiss,