O maiden, you are purity's own sign,You bring the sweetest cure to hearts that pine;
I fear for you from time, though safe you dwellAmong companions, kin, and home as well;
How many friends will court you, then betray,Once they have shared your happy path one day;
Time may unveil its secrets in the light,Your secret sported with, your honour slight;
Life hoards its truth, O daughter of the free—A sea the wicked roil relentlessly;
Upon its shores hearts groan from wounds that burn,Eyes weep for hearts whom fortune spurned in turn;
Some seek a friend to share their living days,Some wander earth in idle, careless ways;
Some sing beside the garden's blooming flowers,Some weep or sigh through long and weary hours;
Time mocks; men seem like doves that come and go,The tide o'erflows life's banks with none to slow;
O Time, enough of what has passed—be kindTo beauty that gives life with grace of mind;
Tomorrow youth will bow before her door;When she inclines, the lover bends the more;
She rose at dawn like newly opened bloom,Flower of delight, charm, passion, verse, and room;
This fragrance—can the gloomy atheist deny?Desirers hover, draw from her supply;
They gather round the scent; lips hum in praise,Then, once refreshed, forsake both prayer and ways;
O Lord, protect her spirit, let her liveBy art's bright armour—strength the reckless give;
Fill her bright eyes with radiance from your light,Bind her thoughts fast in love that burns so bright;
To fight the filth that fills the greedy soul—Foul is the love that loves the self as whole?!
Guard her from transient life's corrupt domains,Where tragedies dissolve the hardest veins;
O Time, those thoughts are scattered, wild, and free,Like autumn leaves blown on a passing breeze;
Now winds may gather them from every side,Now leave them prey to time's unbridled tide;
She is the wounded one Time cast awayOn desert sands where clouds pass overhead;
She wanders still in pits like drifting sand,Now rising toward the clouds that cross the land;
O maiden, you are life's own living sign,Be light whereby awakening souls may shine;
Let womanhood's bright forms endure in grace,Illumine all the fragrant, blessed space.
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