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Title: Who Is The Maid?
Author: Thomas Moore [
More Titles by Moore]
ST. JEROME'S LOVE.
(AIR.--BEETHOVEN.)
Who is the Maid my spirit seeks,
Thro' cold reproof and slander's blight?
Has _she_ Love's roses on her cheeks?
Is _hers_ an eye of this world's light?
No--wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if at times a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.
I chose not her, my heart's elect,
From those who seek their Maker's shrine
In gems and garlands proudly decked,
As if themselves were things divine.
No--Heaven but faintly warms the breast
That beats beneath a broidered veil;
And she who comes in glittering vest
To mourn her frailty, still is frail.
Not so the faded form I prize
And love, because its bloom is gone;
The glory in those sainted eyes
Is all the grace _her_ brow puts on.
And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright,
So touching as that form's decay,
Which, like the altar's trembling light,
In holy lustre wastes away.
[The end]
Thomas Moore's poem: Who Is The Maid?
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