And rumors of desertion; but your pen
Revealed no secrets of your altered life.
Enough for me that you are here to-night,
And have an ear for sorrow, and a heart
Which disappointment has inhabited.
My history you know. A twelvemonth since
This fearful, festive night, and in this house,
I gave my hand to one whom I believed
To be the noblest man God ever made;--
A man who seemed to my infatuate heart
Heaven's chosen genius, through whose tuneful soul
The choicest harmonies of life should flow,
Growing articulate upon his lips
In numbers to enchant a willing world.
I cannot tell you of the pride that filled
My bosom, as I marked his manly form,
And read his soul through his effulgent eyes,
And heard the wondrous music of his voice,
That swept the chords of feeling in all hearts
With such a divine persuasion as might grow
Under the transit of an angel's hand.
And, then, to think that I, a farmer's child,
Should be the woman culled from all the world
To be that man's companion,--to abide
The nearest soul to such a soul--to sit
Close by the fountain of his peerless life--
The welling center of his loving thoughts--
And drink, myself, the sweetest and the best,--
To lay my head upon his breast, and feel
That of all precious burdens it had borne