Talk of the Heart — Bedazzlement... — Inspired by a Bride

She trembles to the point of rapture,
and a daze comes over her...
like one taken unawares by some momentous thing
and struck dumb at the state of it!...
Her hand, before today, never quivered and clenched,
plunged in his hand!
And her eyelids, before today, never poured forth
a full, yielding womanhood
beneath his captivating gazes

* * *

O God!
How can the dazed woman fix
that decisive instant of her squandered life,
the morrow when ardor sweeps through her friendship
as a passion... than which none is stronger, none richer!

* * *

And O God!
How can the dazed woman know
in what magic moment
the halter slips from her grasp
and the iron of her will melts?
While this old friend of hers
sweeps away, with the flash of a gleam,
the clouds of her lowering past...
kindles the first spark
and storms the sanctuary of her deserted heart,
setting its dry firewood ablaze into embers!?

* * *

All she remembers...
is that he drew her to him in silence,
and there cried out to her, for the first time,
his two blazing eyes.
"My beloved!!"