HELLEBORE. Calumny. 
A whisper woke the air, 
A soft, light tone, and low, 
Yet barbed with shame and woe. 
Ah! might it only perish there, 
Nor farther go! 
But no! a quick and eager ear 
Caught up the little, meaning sound— 
Another voice has breathed it clear— 
And so it wandered round 
From ear to lip, from lip to ear, 
Until it reached a gentle heart 
That throbbed, from all the world apart, 
And that—it broke! 
It was the only heart it found— 
The only heart ’twas meant to find, 
When first its accents woke. 
It reached that gentle heart at last, 
And that—it broke! 
Low as it seemed to other ears, 
It came a thunder-crash to hers — 
That fragile girl, so fair and gay. 
’Tis said, a lovely humming-bird, 
That dreaming in a lily lay, 
Was killed but by the gun’s report 
Some idle boy had fired in sport; 
So exquisitely frail its frame, 
The very sound a death-blow came: 
And thus her heart—unused to shame— 
Shrined in its lily too— 
(For who the maid that knew, 
But owned the delicate, flower-like grace 
Of her young form and face?) 
Her light and happy heart, that beat 
With love and hope so fast and sweet, 
When first that cruel word it heard, 
It fluttered like a frightened bird— 
Then shut its wings and sighed, 
And with a silent shudder died! 
F. S. 0. 
