"It Is Not Beauty I Demand " 529

"IT IS NOT BEAUTY I DEMAND"

Ir is not Beauty I demand,

A crystal brow, the moon's despair, Nor the snow's daughter, a white hand, Nor mermaid's yellow pride of hair:

Tell me not of your starry eyes,
Your lips that seem on roses fed,
Your breasts, where Cupid tumbling lies
Nor sleeps for kissing of his bed:-

A bloomy pair of vermeil cheeks

Like Hebe's in her ruddiest hours, A breath that softer music speaks

Than summer winds a-wooing flowers,—

These are but gauds: nay, what are lips?
Coral beneath the ocean-stream,
Whose brink when your adventurer sips
Full oft he perisheth on them.

And what are cheeks but ensigns oft
That wave hot youth to fields of blood?
Did Helen's breast, though ne'er so soft,
Do Greece or Ilium any good?

Eyes can with baleful ardor burn;

Poison can breathe, that erst perfumed; There's many a white hand holds an urn With lovers' hearts to dust consumed.

For crystal brows-there's naught within;
They are but empty cells for pride;
He who the Siren's hair would win
Is mostly strangled in the tide.

Give me, instead of Beauty's bust,
A tender heart, a loyal mind
Which with temptation I could trust,

Yet never linked with error find,

One in whose gentle bosom I

Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the care-burthened honey-fly

That hides his murmurs in the rose,

My earthly Comforter! whose love
So indefeasible might be
That, when my spirit won above,
Hers could not stay, for sympathy.

---

George Darley [1795-1846]

SONG

SHE is not fair to outward view

As many maidens be,

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me;

Oh! then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.

But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold

The love-light in her eye:

Her very frowns are fairer far

Than smiles of other maidens are.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]

SONG

A VIOLET in her lovely hair,

A rose upon her bosom fair!

But O, her eyes

A lovelier violet disclose,

And her ripe lips the sweetest rose
That's 'neath the skies.

A lute beneath her graceful hand
Breathes music forth at her command;

Eileen Aroon

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But still her tongue

Far richer music calls to birth

Than all the minstrel power on earth
Can give to song.

And thus she moves in tender light,
The purest ray, where all is bright,
Serene, and sweet;

And sheds a graceful influence round,
That hallows e'en the very ground

Beneath her feet!

Charles Swain [1801-1874]

EILEEN AROON

WHEN like the early rose,

Eileen Aroon!

Beauty in childhood blows,
Eileen Aroon!

When, like a diadem,

Buds blush around the stem,

Which is the fairest gem? -
Eileen Aroon!

Is it the laughing eye,

Eileen Aroon!

Is it the timid sigh,

Eileen Aroon!

Is it the tender tone,

Soft as the stringed harp's moan?

O, it is truth alone,

Eileen Aroon!

When like the rising day,

Eileen Aroon!

Love sends his early ray,
Eileen Aroon!

What makes his dawning glow,
Changeless through joy or woe?

Only the constant know:

Eileen Aroon!

I know a valley fair,

Eileen Aroon!

I knew a cottage there,
Eileen Aroon!

Far in that valley's shade
I knew a gentle maid,
Flower of a hazel glade,-
Eileen Aroon!

Who in the song so sweet?
Eileen Aroon!

Who in the dance so fleet?
Eileen Aroon!

Dear were her charms to me

Dearer her laughter free,

Dearest her constancy,-

Eileen Aroon!

Were she no longer true,
Eileen Aroon!

What should her lover do?
Eileen Aroon!

Fly with his broken chain

Far o'er the sounding main,
Never to love again,—

Eileen Aroon!

Youth must with time decay,
Eileen Aroon!

Beauty must fade away,

Eileen Aroon!

Castles are sacked in war,

Chieftains are scattered far,

Truth is a fixed star,

Eileen Aroon!

Gerald Griffin [1803-1840]

ANNIE LAURIE

MAXWELTON braes are bonnie

Where early fa's the dew,
And it's there that Annie Laurie

Gie'd me her promise true

To Helen

Gie'd me her promise true,
Which ne'er forgot will be;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doun and dee.

Her brow is like the snaw-drift;
Her throat is like the swan;
Her face it is the fairest

That e'er the sun shone on-
That e'er the sun shone on-
And dark blue is her ee;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doun and dee.

Like dew on the gowan lying
Is the fa' o' her fairy feet;

And like the winds in summer sighing,
Her voice is low and sweet-

Her voice is low and sweet

And she's a' the world to me;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I'd lay me doun and dee.

TO HELEN

William Douglas [ ? ]

HELEN, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicæan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,
The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849]