The Hidden Name

by Hannah Flagg Gould

She loved; but her bosom had buried the dart;
And there, while she strove to conceal it,
Its point had engraven his NAME on her heart
Too deep for her lips to reveal it.

She wept; but the world knew it not, for her eye,
Of joy's playful sunlight would borrow
A few dazzling beams, when another was by,
To drink up the dew-drops of sorrow.

She grieved; and in secret the sigh would release,
That long in her breast had been stifled.
She pined; and in solitude mourned for the peace,
Whereof her young heart had been rifled.

She languished and faded, and silently fell;
And now in the tomb she is lying.
While none that looked on could the malady tell,
The flower in its beauty was dying!

But told was her secret on many a leaf,
While cold was the hand that conveyed it --
In lines that were broken and blotted with grief,
Where Death, a pale spoiler! betrayed it.

And yet, not a trace of the NAME can be found;
With darkness and silence hung o'er it,
The sacred engraving is hid in the ground,
Locked up in the bosom that bore it.