Never before was daughter of Eve endow'd with a face so fair, There be none of God's holy angels with a beauty half so rare As thine, nor dreamer has ever dreamed the loveliness you wear. There's a gleam in your golden tress, Lieb! a light in your melting eye! There is witchery in your smile, Lieb! and a magic in your sigh That may lure the strong ones to your shrine to worship and - to die. And I - when you whispered softly, Lleb - perchance would have worshipped, too, Had bowed to the spell of your beauty-an' it were not that I knew The Devil had wrought his masterpiece what time he fashioned you.
First published in The Bulletin, 15 July 1893.
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