To a Beautiful Stranger

A glance, a smile,—I see it yet! A moment ere the train was starting; How strange to tell! we scarcely met, And yet I felt a pang at parting.

And you (alas! that all the while 'Tis I alone who am confessing!), What thought was lurking in your smile Is quite beyond my simple guessing.

I only know those beaming rays Awoke in me a strange emotion, Which, basking in their warmer blaze, Perhaps might kindle to devotion.

Ah! many a heart as stanch as this, By smiling lips allured from Duty, Has sunk in Passion's dark abyss,— "Wrecked on the coral reefs of Beauty!"

And so, 'tis well the train's swift flight That bore away my charming stranger Took her—God bless her!—out of sight, And me, as quickly, out of danger!