Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: GLADYS THE SINGER. Canto afirst. Ye who have known the pangs that lovers know, The tears, the tremors, and the sovereign glow Of some enthralment fresh from Fairyland, And, therewithal, the sprites, who in a band Uphold, unseen, the courtship of true men,— 0 ye bright souls ! for whom, with faltering pen, I trace, e'en now, this tale of love and pride, Accept, I pray you, safe and sanctified, My lovers twain who fared not righteously ! For you have loved as they in their degree And hoped as they, and sighed as they have done, And sought the folly which is barred to none, But stands and smiles and waits for us alway. And lo ! I note the things that, day by day, You guard and foster, with enravished eyes, And how you count the toys of your emprize :— The keepsake-flower,—the curl that's passion-dear,- The scented scroll that's read from year to year. And while I note these things and muse thereon I think of those sweet souls beyond the dawn Whose love was flame. O deathless ! O ye dead ! Are ye well met ? Have ye no tears to shed Not e'en for joy ? Is love not worth a kiss Up there in Heaven ? A mere seraphic bliss Fit for a saint?—God help us then each one !— And you, my brothers, you this side the sun, Who love true-love, believe this much of me, That I have worshipped Love upon my knee And almost feared it. I have trembled too In my much joy ! A glove,—a ribbon's hue,— Have moved me strangely ; and in lonely hours, In empty chambers, and in starlit bowers, I have as 'twere enthroned a sainted Grief, And paid it homage. Have you found relief In tears and dreams,—as I have done full oft,— And not been proud or perjured when, aloft, A lark has seemed to trill the loved one's name ? I pray you all, by Love's resistless flame, Accept of me this tale which now is t...