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34 Youth's Golden Gleam
ness and taste."19 She used her lovely voice and her musical understanding to help the bookkeeper composer of Irwin & Foster when he came to try out his new songs.
One evening in the late summer of 1847 Stephen sat at the piano in the Marshall parlor and placed before her a manuscript ballad which was to bear, on its title-page., the words "written & composed for & inscribed to Miss Sophie B. Marshall."20 These were the words Sophie sang:
STAY SUMMER BREATH
Summer breath, summer breath, whispering low, Wand'ring in darkness, where would'st thou go? Wilt thou not linger and perfume the night, With the fragrance thou'st gather'd in regions of light ?
Dost sigh for the rose, would'st thou visit her bower, Or sport with the mist till the coming of day; Or art thou seeking some modest wild flower, Whose beauty is gone with sun's parting ray?
Summer breath, summer breath, woo not the rose, There lies the dew drop in blissful repose, Nestling together, they know not of death; Would'st waft them asunder? Stay summer breath.
Stay for the vapours above yonder fountain,
Will shun thy caresses, they love not the air,
And all the wild flowers that bloom on the mountain,
Will shrink from thy kiss, summer breath, go not there!
These verses and the dedication represented, of course, not personal love but, as did his other songs and dedications, the convention- |
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