fragrance in your sighs and sunlight in your glances

Today has been National Poetry Day and TS Eliot has been declared the nation's favourite poet. ...alas for me his name always recalls a quote from Eric Idle:

"In a perfect universe 'T. S. Eliot' would be spelt 'toilets' backwards" - Eric Idle


I have a great love of poetry, for the perfect crafting of evocative words. As a small child I studied poetry recital where most children would be out learning how to play football. So I thought for today I would pull out a lesser known piece from the book in which I transcribe my most favourite poems. From an era of true gentlemen who would gift admired ladies beautiful things that they could treasure all their lives.

lines written for a blank page of The Keepsake

by W. M. Praed

Lady, there's fragrance in your sighs,
And sunlight in your glances;
I never saw such lips and eyes
In pictures or romances;
And Love will readily suppose,
To make you quite enslaving,
That you have taste for verse and prose.
Hot pressed, and line engraving.

And then, you waltz so like a Fay,
That round you envy rankles;
Your partner's head is turned, they say,
As surely as his ankles;
And I was taught, in days far gone.
By a most prudent mother,
That in this world of sorrow, one
Good turn deserves another.

I may not win you! — that's a bore!
But yet 'tis sweet to woo you;
And for this cause, — and twenty more,
I send this gay book to you.
If its songs please you, — by this light!
I will not hold it treason
To bid you dream of me to-night,
And dance with me next season.