“If she but smile, the crystal calm shall break
In music, sweeter than it ever gave”

—  Bayard Taylor

"The Return of the Goddess" (1850), later published as the Preface to The Poet's Journal (1863); also in The Poetical Works of Bayard Taylor (1907), p. 103.
Context: If she but smile, the crystal calm shall break
In music, sweeter than it ever gave,
As when a breeze breathes o'er some sleeping lake,
And laughs in every wave.

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Bayard Taylor 13
United States poet, novelist and travel writer 1825–1878

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