Passion-Flowers (Howe)/Sybil

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SYBIL.
Your head is wild with books, Sybil, But your heart is good and kind—I feel a new contentment near you, A pleasure of the mind.
Glad should I be to sit beside you, And let long hours glide by,Reading, through all your sweet narrations, The language of your eye.
Since the maternal saint I worshipped Did look and love her last,No woman o'er my wayward spirit Such gentle spell has cast.
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Oh! tell me of your varied fortunes, For you know not, from your faceLooks out strange sadness, lit with rapture, And melancholy grace.
You are a gem, whose native brilliance Could never wholly reign,An opal, whose prismatic fire A white cloud doth restrain.
And thus, the mood to which you move me Is never perfect, quite,'T is pity, wonderment, and pleasure, Opacity and light.
Bear me then in your presence, Sybil, And leave your hand in mine,For, though human be my nature, You 've made it half divine.
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