Snowdrops

O take away your snowdrops pale, I can not bear the sight—They were woven in our Ada's hair upon her bridal night;And fairer looked the snowy buds than India's rarest pearls,And fairer than them both the brow that beamed beneath her curls.That lily brow, those tresses dark, O ne'er so fair a brideHath trembled at the altar-place her chosen one beside;And never heart more pure and fond, a wedding gift was broughtThan Ada's in its sinlessness, its sweet and earnest thought.The snowy robe, and lily brow, and bridal garland pale,And dark bright tresses shining through the silver-woven vail;The delicately tinted cheek, the bright lips' sweet unrest,That quivered all unconsciously to the pulse within her breast;The drooping eyelid glittering with bright and happy tears—The memory of that bridal night hath haunted me for years.

But take away your pale, pale wreath, I can not bear the sight;I saw it on our Ada's brow upon another night;Another night—O if her brow outshone the wreath before,Sure nothing earthly matched the white her brow and cheek then wore:So pallid that the tracery of the blue, delicate veinUpon the temple passed away, with all its violet stain;Gone was all light, all radiance; with moveless lip and limbShe listened to the dreadful words they whispered her of him;The husband of her bridehood false! her frightened soul seemed flown,And the pale buds to wreathe a brow above a heart of stone.O beautiful, most beautiful, but like a marble vase,Whence life and perfume both are fled, the beauty of her face;For fearfully and fatally the sudden terror came,And quenched her life as would the sea a little incense flame;And standing like a Hindoo girl who sees her lamp expire,Her soul died out as music dies along a breaking lyre.That night the wreath that decked the bride was loosened from her hair,And the dark tresses straitened back with still and reverent care.

But soon again we wove a wreath of buds as white as snow;We could not bear that even the grave should witness to her woe;We twined them with her braided hair, and placed them on her breast,And laid her softly down to sleep in a sweet place of rest;But these fair buds bring back the scene, and the two that went before,Then bring to twine about my brow your snowy wreath no more;For fairer though they be than pearls, I can not bear the sightOf snowdrops woven in a wreath since that remembered night.