George William Curtis
Published: 2013-09
Total Pages: 34
Get eBook
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1856 edition. Excerpt: ...past when you are there. Here at Saratoga, when the last polka is polked, and the last light in the ball-room is extinguished, you saunter along the great piazza, with the "good night" of Beauty yet trembling upon your lips, and meet some old Habitue, or even a group of them, smoking in lonely arm-chairs, and meditating the days departed. The great court is dark and still. The waning moon is rising beyond the trees, but does not yet draw their shadows, moonlight-mosaics, upon the lawn. There are no mysterious couples moving in the garden, not a solitary foot-fall upon the piazza. A few lanterns burn dimly about the doors, and the light yet lingering in a lofty chamber reminds you that some form, whose grace this evening has made memory a festival, is robing itself for dreams. If courtly Edmund Waller were with you, it would not be hard to tempt him to step with you across the court to serenade under that window, with the most musical and genuine of his verses. Go, lovely Rose! Tell her who wastes her time and me, That now she knows, When I resemble her to thee, How sweet and fair she seems to be. Tell her that's young, And shuns to have her graces spied, That hadst thou sprung In deserts where no men abide, Thou must have uncommended died. Small is the worth Of beauty from the light retired; Bid her come forth, Suffer herself to be desired, And not blush so to be admired. Then die! that she The common fate of all things rare May read in thee--How small a part of time they share, That are so wondrous sweet and-fair. He not being at Saratoga this year you are content with looking across the court and remembering his song. The moonlight softens your heart as did the golden days at Baiae. You, too, seat yourself in a lonely...