A GLANCE, a smile, -- I see it yet! A moment ere the train was starting; How strange to tell! we scarcely met, And yet I felt a pang at parting And you, (alas! that all the while 'T is I alone who am confessing!) What thought was lurking in your smile Is quite beyond my simple guessing. I only know those beaming rays Awoke in me a strange emotion, Which, basking in their warmer blaze, Perhaps might kindle to devotion. Ah! many a heart as stanch as this, By smiling lips allured from Duty, Has sunk in Passion's dark abyss, -- "Wrecked on the coral reefs of Beauty!" And so, 't is well the train's swift flight That bore away my charming stranger Took her -- God bless her! -- out of sight, And me, as quickly, out of danger! | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...THE FIRST SNOWFALL by JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL HOMAGE TO SEXTUS PROPERTIUS: 6 by EZRA POUND THE SHEPHEARDES CALENDER: DECEMBER by EDMUND SPENSER THE OLD CUMBERLAND BEGGAR by WILLIAM WORDSWORTH ON THE EPHEMERALNESS OF BEAUTY by FRANKLIN PIERCE ADAMS |