Stories in Verse

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Title: Stories in Verse
Author: Henry Abbey
Release Date: October 16, 2007 [EBook #23037]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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STORIES IN VERSE.
BY
HENRY ABBEY.
The sense of the world is short--
To love and be beloved.
EMERSON.
NEW YORK:
A. D. F. RANDOLPH & CO., PUBLISHERS,

COR. BROADWAY AND NINTH STREET.
1869.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
HENRY
L. ABBEY,
in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the
Southern District of New York.
RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE:
PRINTED BY H. O. HOUGHTON
AND COMPANY.
TO
RICHARD GRANT WHITE,
WITH GRATITUDE FOR HIS FRIENDSHIP, AND WITH
ADMIRATION FOR HIS ELEGANT SCHOLARSHIP.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
BLANCHE 1
KARAGWE, AN AFRICAN 28
DEMETRIUS 55
THE STRONG SPIDER 82
GRACE BERNARD 94
VEERA 112
BLANCHE:
AN EXHALATION FROM WITHERED VIOLETS.
I.
THE VENDER OF VIOLETS.

"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
This was the cry I heard
As I passed
through the street of a city;
And quickly my heart was stirred
To an
incomprehensible pity,
At the undertone of the cry;
For it seemed
like the voice of one
Who was stricken, and all undone,
Who was
only longing to die.
"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
The voice came nearer still.
"Surely," I
said, "it is May,
And out on valley and hill,
The violets blooming
to-day,
Send this invitation to me
To come and be with them once
more;
I know they are dear as can be,
And I hate the town with its
roar."
"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
Children of sun and of dew,
Flakes of
the blue of the sky,
There is somebody calling to you
Who seems to
be longing to die;
Yet violets are so sweet
They can scarcely have
dealings with death.
Can it be, that the dying breath,
That comes
from the one last beat
Of a true heart, turns to the flowers?
"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
The crier is near me at last.
With my
eyes I am holding her fast.
She is a lovely seller of flowers.
She is
one whom the town devours
In its jaws of bustle and strife.
How
poverty grinds down a life;
For, lost in the slime of a city,
What is a
beautiful face?
Few are they who have pity
For loveliness in
disgrace.
Yet she that I hold with my eyes,
Who seems so modest
and wise,
Has not yet fallen, I am sure.
She has nobly learned to
endure.

Large, and mournful, and meek,
Her eyes seem to drink
from my own.
Her curls are carelessly thrown
Back from white
shoulder and cheek;
And her lips seem strawberries, lost
In some
Arctic country of frost.
The slightest curve on a face,
May give an
expression unmeet;
Yet hers is so perfect and sweet,
And shaped
with such delicate grace,
Its loveliness is complete.
"Violets! Violets! Violets!"
I hear the cry once more;
But not as I
heard it before.
It whispers no more of death;
But only of odorous

breath,
And modest flowers, and life.
I purchased a cluster, so rife

With the touch of her tapering hand,
I seem to hold it in mine.
I
would I could understand,
Why a touch seems so divine.
II.
A FLOWER FOUND IN THE STREET.
To-day in passing down the street,
I found a flower upon the walk,

A dear syringa, white and sweet,
Wrung idly from the missing stalk.
And something in its odor speaks
Of dark brown eyes, and arms of
snow,
And rainbow smiles on sunset cheeks--
The maid I saw a
month ago.
I waited for her many a day,
On the dear ground where first we met;

I sought her up and down the way,
And all in vain I seek her yet.
Syringa, naught your odor tells,
Or whispers so I cannot hear;

Speak out, and tell me where she dwells,
In perfume accents, loud
and clear.
Shake out the music of your speech,
In quavers of delicious breath;

The conscious melody may teach
A lover where love wandereth.
If so you speak, with smile and look,
You will not wither, but endure;

And in my heart's still open book,
Keep your white petals ever
pure.
If so you speak, upon her breast
You yet may rest, nor sigh afar;

But in the moonlight's silver dressed,
Seem 'gainst your heaven the
evening star.
III.
ODYLE.

We know that they are often near
Of whom we think, of whom we
talk,
Though we have missed them many a year,
And lost them
from our daily walk.
Some strange clairvoyance dwells in all,
And webs the souls of
human kind.
I would that I could learn its thrall,
And know the
power of mind on mind.
I then might quickly use the sense,
To find where