Rosabella - Purity Of Heart
Though with an angel's tongue
I set on fire the congregations all,
'Tis but a brazen bell that I have rung,
And I to nothing fall;
My theme is but an idle air
If Rosabella is not there,
Though I in thunders rave,
And hurl the blaze of oratoric flowers,
Others I move, but fail myself to save
With my declaiming powers;
I sink, alas! I know not where,
If Rosabella is not there.
Though I point out the way,
And closely circumscribe the path to heaven,
And pour my melting prayer without delay,
And vow my sins forgiven,
I sink into the gloom despair
If Rosabella is not there,
Though I may mountains move,
And make the vallies vocal with my song,
I'm vain without a stream of mystic love,
For all my heart is wrong;
I've laid myself a cruel snare,
If Rosabella is not there.
From bibliothic stores,
I fly, proclaiming heaven from land to land,
Or cross the seas and reach their distant shores,
Mid Gothic groups to stand;
O, let me of myself beware,
If Rosabella is not there.
Our classic books must fail,
And with their flowery tongues to ashes burn,
And not one groat a mortal wit avail
Upon his last return;
Be this the creature's faithful prayer,
That Rosabella may be there.
This spotless maid was born
The babe of heaven, and cannot be defiled;
The soul is dead and in a state forlorn
On which she has not smiled;
Vain are the virile and the fair,
If Rosabella be not there.
When other pleasures tire,
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poem by George Moses Horton
Added by Poetry Lover
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