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Read Ebook: Daisy Dare and Baby Power Poems by Jeffrey Rosa Vertner Johnson D Vertner Illustrator
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Ebook has 125 lines and 11844 words, and 3 pages
Oh, stubborn pride! unyielding still; Her heart is conquered; but her will Defies its tender, pleading tone: She left him--they were both alone.
When eve her golden goblet fills Among the sunset's purple hills, And overflows that sunset wine In streams of glory on the brine,
Unto the shore a maiden came, Who gazed where, down that track of flame A steamer to the west did dip: Her heart went outward with the ship.
She had not kept her tryst that day, Nor waved her hand to Allen Gray: Both little hands were still--'twas true She could not "give her heart to two."
She heard the parting signals sound, And then the haughty pride that bound Her woman's heart, which had defied Her woman's love, grew faint and died.
She heard the steamship's iron bell; Turned to the shore, but faltered, fell-- For ocean steamers do not wait On love--her pride gave way too late.
"Too late!" she heard it rise and swell, Tolled by the iron steamer's bell; Told by the mocking voice of Fate, Rung through her heart, "too late!" "too late!"
And now, when from that outward bound, Defiant distance brought no sound, She wandered hopeless to the strand, And, hopeless, westward waved her hand.
The steamer's black smoke drifting far Rose up and hid the evening star: A bitter symbol of that strife Between love's day-star and her life.
In the late gloaming's purple gloom She wandered home; but half the bloom Had faded from her cheek and lips: Love's orient was in eclipse.
"The ship went down!" such message crossed The lightning wire, and all were lost Save Captain Gray, and two or three; Among them was not Graham Lee.
From Daisy's hand the paper fell; No cry she uttered, but a swell Of anguish through her heart did sweep, Bearing it downward to the deep.
As the green pallor of a storm A summer landscape doth deform, Making a livid shadow grow Athwart the noon-day's ruddy glow,
Across the future once so fair, So ripe with joy for Daisy Dare, Fate's cruel sickle swept, and left Life of its golden harvest reft.
Women are deemed cold, careless, proud, Who suffer bravely in a crowd; Smiles flash from hearts in sorrow set, As gleams from jewels edged with jet.
Some months had passed--it was not long-- When Daisy stood amid a throng, Turning her white cheek from the light, Clasping her small hands fiercely tight!
For she had heard two brave men say,-- A stranger one--one Allen Gray,-- No braver hero ever died Than he whose love she lost through pride.
Unselfish, earnest, daring, brave, All but himself he tried to save; Heedless of death and danger--why? One heart alone could make reply.
One spirit that had vainly sought Rest from a hungry surge of thought; Fierce retribution!--thus to be Tortured by praise of Graham Lee!
Hero! but not for her to claim-- There was the anguish, there the shame: How little yielding 'twould have cost To call him still her own, though lost.
But she had cast away the right, And, mutely wretched, heard that night, With stormy heart and tearless cheek, His praise whose name she dared not speak.
Few knew that they were lovers--none That their two hearts had pulsed as one; So the world called her cold and changed; Friends thought her haughty and estranged.
The current of her life's May-time Ran chill beneath a crust of rime; And lovers wore, for Daisy's sake, The icy chains they could not break.
A yearning sadness in her face But added to that nameless grace, That spell by which some women reign In hearts they never strove to gain.
Love fell on her superb repose Like warm light on a sculptured rose, As if--beguiled--to flush apart The chiselled whiteness of its heart.
The voice of passion to her soul Swept, as the storm-voiced surges roll Up toward a star-like beacon steep, Dashed backward rayless to the deep.
As fire-fly lighting up a maze Of cobwebs with its dying blaze; Held by a grim black spider fast-- Flashing with glory to the last.
Thus tangled in a cruel fate, Dared through her folly, feared too late, The light of Daisy's lost love made The past fall back in deepest shade.
Strong natures suffer more than those Who, bowing down, parade their woes For a brief season, and then rise: The brave heart uncomplaining dies.
So after years that inner gloom Had only softened Daisy's bloom, Giving such meaning to her eyes As worldlings cannot analyze.
And when her pink cheek turned too soon Pale as magnolia buds in June, No one could call its fairness blight, Or wish a flush upon the white.
When just one shade of roundness passed From her proud form, they said at last That she must travel. Well she knew Love and regret would travel too!
'Twas not one shore alone, whose surge Came wailing to her like a dirge; The surf, the waves of every sea, Everywhere, moaned of Graham Lee.
And when in a far distant land, Upon a sunny southern strand, Where warm waves, green as malachite, Come leaping, as from vats of light,
Where summer's sumptuous golden blaze Wraps earth in a voluptuous haze Of lambent splendor; where the skies Drop balm as erst in Paradise,
Where clusters of imperial trees Nod their green plumes o'er slumberous seas; Warm, amorous deeps! whose crystal calms Dream of the emerald-crested palms.
A shore of bloom! a sea so bright! Entranced they mingle in the light; Apart--yet wedded by the sun, As severed hearts through love made one.
Where air as an elixir fine Exhilarates like sparkling wine; Where mere existence brings a joy Life's trifling ills cannot destroy:
There, where the aromatic breeze-- Fledged in a nest of orange-trees, Kissing the slumb'rous waves--made sweet The sea-foam swept to Daisy's feet.
The gloom, the shadow, passed not by; Still white her cheek, as shells that lie Like drifted snow on golden strand, Where stood she writing in the sand.
And still the envious surges came To wash away that precious name Writ on her heart's warm shore for years, Merged by its tidal flow of tears.
She stood in a sequestered cove, While countless memories of love Heaped treasure, till her sea of grief Blushed--breaking on a coral-reef!
For precious memories often grow From out the darkest voids of woe; As fissures by the sea-worm drilled In Eastern shells, with pearls are filled.
The creeping tide swells, shot with flame, Stole up and kissed away that name Which Fate indeed, with mocking hand, For her had written in the sand.
Outward, upon her right did reach A long, white, narrow line of beach, Where careless groups now idly strayed, Watching the flush of sunset fade.
And when across that crimson glow Her gaze went out as long ago, O'er colder seas, unto a ship Which toward the setting sun did dip,
On the far point of that white sand Standing together, hand in hand, Like forms of sculptured bronze revealed Against the sunset's burnished shield,
Two figures smote her 'wildered sight, And left two blots upon the light; Darker than iron ship afar Or smoke that hid the evening star.
For there, between her and the sun, Stood Graham Lee, and with him one Whose beauty stirred to bitter strife The chilly current of her life.
As summer sends a mighty thrill Through clust'ring icy floes, until Their shudd'ring breaks the ghastly sleep Of Nova Zembla's pallid deep.
More dead he seemed to her that hour-- There, in the strength of manly power, Bending to see those dark eyes shine-- Than cold and still beneath the brine.
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