Poems (Cary)/The Betrayal

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THE BETRAYAL.
Tell me when the stars are flashing In the northern sky so blue,Or when morning's tender crimson Sweetly burns along the dew,Comes there no reproachful whisper From the mornings and the eves,When Hope's white buds into beauty Opened like the faint young leaves?
Ay, thou feel'st, despite thy silence— That betrayal burns thy cheek;Even to Love's forgiving bosom There be thoughts thou canst not speak!From the roses of that bridal, The dark price of nameless woe,Thou mayst not unbind the curses Till thy last of suns is low!
Lost and broken is the music That with beauty filled the night,—Melted from the frozen branches Are the frost-stars glistening bright,— ​When a maid with trembling bosom Watched a ne'er returning steed,Cleaving through the silver shadows, On and on, his shaft-like speed!
Faint against the ringing pavement, Fainter still the hoof-strokes beat.Scarcely can she tell the shimmer Of the flint-sparks from the sleet.Years are gone: the village hill tops Redden with the sunset's glow;With a lap all bright with blossoms Still the summers come and go.
With a cheek grown thinner, whiter, And the dark locks put awayFrom a brow of patient beauty, Dwells the maiden of my lay—Dwells she, where the peaceful shadow Of her native hills is thrown,Binding up the wounds of others All the better for her own.
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