The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842) - Gredos ...

The Salamanca Corpus: The Poetical Works of Miss Susanna Blamire (1842)
The tall trees lengthen in the sombre gloom;
Her brighter gleams now light the leafy tower,
Now show the Gothic arches of the dome.
1 Shakspeare.
[92] MISS BLAMIRE S
A wandering cloud will sometimes cross her way,
Her head oft bowing lets the stranger pass,
“While golden stars the canopy enlay,
And shadowy forms fly o’er the waving grass.
In solemn groves, where silver lamps late hung,
The fear-struck traveller sees huge spectres rise;
Sees grisly ghosts and stalking phantoms come,
As darkness draws the curtain of the skies.
In yonder tower the meditative mind
May suit the subject to the scene around,
Find some memento murmur in the wind,
Or print the smallest leaf that strows the ground.
BRIDE-CAKE.
How shall the muse in chinking rhyme impart
The warmth of gratitude that fires my heart,
To thee, my friend, who taught the easy way
To see my destiny as clear as day!
Nor need I now, with trembling steps and slow,
To yonder church’s porch in terror go;
Or hail pale Cynthia in the coming year,
When first she’s seen, and kindly means to hear
Each love petition, when the kneeling maid
Cold ashes pours on her fantastic head,
And there invokes the goddess to unfold
Some scroll of Destiny, by Fates enroll’d,
That names the man, whom bounteous they afford,
To be her lover, husband, fool, or lord;
[93] .
Nor need the Cake of Silence now be made,
And I quite tongue-tied backward go to bed;
Saint Agnes, why such cruel fasts impose!
I ask thee not one secret to disclose;