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Title: Beautiful Barbara
Author: J. C. Manning [
More Titles by Manning]
Beautiful Barbara--Barbara bright,
As bright and as fresh as the dainty dawn,
What is it disturbeth her bosom white,
As the breeze into billows kisseth the corn?
Beautiful Barbara--silent and shy,
Shy as the dove, as the dove as fond,
What a dreaminess lives in her hazel eye,
As she looketh away through the valley beyond.
Through the valley beyond, where the daisies blush,
Where the woodbines bloom and the rivulets run;
Through the valley beyond, where, in evening's hush,
Beautiful Barbara's heart was won.
And the maiden Barbara, fair and forlorn,
The grass-green meadow looketh along;
The morrow was fixed for her wedding morn,
And she vieweth in vision the bridal throng.
She looketh, and weepeth, and looketh in vain:
Her heart was trustful; his heart was untrue;
And beautiful Barbara mingleth amain
Her tears with the daisies and the dew.
And the harvest moon sat silent and pale,
Silent and pale o'er the far-off hill:
And the sun in the morning flushing the vale
Saw beautiful Barbara stark and still.
Stark and still, with a forehead of white,
Round which the dew-drop coronal shone;
And the sunbeams came with their laughing light,
But beautiful Barbara sleepeth on.
'Twas a trying path for her dainty feet,
For such dainty feet as her's to tread.
So her trampled heart 'gainst its bars had beat,
Till it bravely broke and heavenward fled.
[The end]
J. C. Manning's poem: Beautiful Barbara
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