New Zealand Verse/Her Secret

XC.

Her Secret.

She moves sedate, through garden ways
Or ancient parlours cool and shady;
Content in quiet length of days,
A typical old maiden lady.
With soul as snowy as the lace
That lappets o’er her faded tresses,
And sweet as violets fragrant trace
That haunts her quaintly fashioned dresses.
One single crime her heart within,
In quiet hours of meditation
Must be confessed, a hidden sin
To stir that soul to trepidation.

For when in maiden age one stands
Left neither soured nor broken-hearted,
Tradition this at least demands!—
Nor faithful to some long departed:
When midst the records of the years
One finds no sign to sorrow over;
No yellowing letters stained with tears,
No least remembrance of a lover!
Hidden in sacredness apart,
No withering blossoms loved and guarded—
What wonder that the saintliest heart
Should feel the slightest bit defrauded?

Dear is the ancient maiden dame
To maiden belles of modern dances;
And girlish fantasies they frame
Of long-past, ever-fresh romances.
And if they deem such history
She treasures, safe from rash intrusion—
She would not tell the whitest lie,
Yet still, she fosters the delusion.
A smile, a sigh, is all they ask
To furnish hints for fancy’s weaving;
She takes her tender soul to task
For such unparalleled deceiving!

“What changed her fate? and how, and when?”
“What crossing chanced of love and duty?”
“She scarce was wondrous fair, but then,
Is every married dame a beauty?”
’Tis strange how brightest maids will love
A passing woefulness to borrow;
They treasure, happier thoughts above,
This mystery of secret sorrow.
Their hearts are fluttering to condole
With grief such tenderest pity moving—
And she a gentle lonely soul,
That no one ever thought of loving!

Mary Colborne-Veel.