Ill Omen's

By Thomas Moore

When daylight was yet sleeping under the billow,
And stars in the heavens still ling'ring shone,
Young Kitty, all blushing, rose up from her pillow,
The last time she e'er was to press it alone.
For the youth whom she treasur'd her heart and her soul in,
Had promis'd to link the last tie before noon;
And when once the young heart of a maiden is stolen,
The maiden herself will steal after it soon.

As she look'd in the glass, which a woman ne'er misses,
Nor ever wants time for a sly glance or two,
A butterfly, fresh from the night flower's kisses,
Flew over the mirror and shaded her view.
Enraged with the insect for hiding her graces,
She brush'd him--he fell, alas! never to rise --
Ah! such, said the girl, is the pride of our faces,
For which the soul's innocence too often dies.

While she stole thro' the garden, where heart's-ease was growing,
She cull'd some, and kiss'd off its night-fallen dew;
And a rose further on looked so tempting and glowing,
That, spite of her haste, she must gather it too;
But, while o'er the roses too carelessly leaning,
Her zone flew in two, and the heart's-ease was lost:
Ah! this means, said the girl (and she sigh'd at its meaning),
That love is scarce worth the repose it will cost!