Henry Kendall

Poems and Songs (1862). Lurline

(Inscribed to Madame Lucy Escott.)

As you glided and glided before us that time,
 A mystical, magical maiden,
We fancied we looked on a face from the clime
 Where the poets have builded their Aidenn!
And oh, the sweet shadows!  And oh, the warm gleams
Which lay on the land of our beautiful dreams,
While we walked by the margins of musical streams
 And heard your wild warbling around us!

We forgot what we were when we stood with the trees
 Near the banks of those silvery waters;
As ever in fragments they came on the breeze,
 The songs of old Rhine and his daughters!
And then you would pass with those radiant eyes
Which flashed like a light in the tropical skies—
And ah! the bright thoughts that would sparkle and rise
 While we heard your wild warbling around us.

Will you ever fly back to this city of ours
 With your harp and your voice and your beauty?
God knows we rejoice when we meet with such flowers
 On the hard road of Life and of Duty!
Oh! come as you did, with that face and that tone,
For we wistfully look to the hours which have flown,
And long for a glimpse of the gladness that shone
 When we heard your wild warbling around us.