There read the message which thou dost require!




IX

"TWIXT STAR AND STAR"


Not here,--not here, where weak conventions mar
Life's hopes and joys, Love's beauty, truth and grace,
Must I come near thee, greet thee face to face,
Pour in thine ear the songs and sighs that are
My heart's best offerings. But in regions far,
Where Love's ethereal pinions may embrace
Beauty divine--in the clear interspace
Of twilight silence betwixt star and star,

And in the smiles of cloudless skies serene,
In Dawn's first blush and Sunset's lingering glow,
And in the glamour of the Moon's chaste beams--
My soul meets thine, and there thine image seen,
More real than life, doth to my lone heart show
Such charms as live in Memory's haunting dreams!




X