THE MOORISH BARQUE.

LICOSA, 'tis a lovely thought

That roams thy rocky steep,

Where palms and wild pomegranates wrought

Sweet shades for summer sleep; And blossom'd aloes rear'd the head

Like guardians of the grove,

To shield it from intrusive tread
Of any step but love.

I dream upon the dawn serene,
When on thy seaward crag reclined,

I saw by cleft and rude ravine

Thy bird-nets waving in the wind, And weary wings far o'er the sea

From burning suns and barren sands,

Faint flutter to a worse decree
In cruel captor's hands.

I would I could recall as well
The latent urchin's lay-

The long wild lay, that rose and fell
As came the fitful prey—

'Twas but the tale so often told
Of maiden fair and lover bold,
Rich in all gifts excepting gold,
And hopeless as the hearts of old;
But yet so wild the strain,
That lingering memory still would hold
The fragments that remain.

Bold peasant youth, fair vintage maid,
Their love was laid in Fortune's shade,
That thing so pure might never fade,
Nor lose the simple pride,
Whenever task romantic fell,

By vine-clad rock, or orange dell,

Of toiling side by side.

'Twas eve; and one had gained his prayer

Of toil to take the double share

Beneath the sultry ray;

And one had chased the lonely hour
With love-songs in her mossy bower,
Fair beetling o'er the bay.

'Twas gentle eve, the task was done, And now, like wild-dove on the wing, He sought the smile his pains had won, Beside the star-lit spring,

And swifter still his course he took,
For ne'er those pains had been
So distant from the lovely look,

Such weary hours unseen—

And as he went he thought how oft,

When waves were calm, and zephyrs soft, The stranger sail would linger there

For water from the fountain fair,

And fancy wilder grew

On all that savage hands might dare,
And all that love might rue;

When hovering on the outward breeze,
Beneath the mountain dark,

Behold the falcon of the seas-
Behold the Moorish barque!

A moment, and he reached the grot

Where she had lain, but lay not now; And broken wreath, and true love knot, And footmarks by the fountain plot, Full plainly spoke the maiden's lot The prize of yonder prow!

His thrill was like the lightning shock,
His thought the bolt in flight:

A bound, and he hath cleared the rock,
Like sea-bird swooping from the sight;

And o'er the tide behold him take

His pathway in the pirate's wake.

Far, far away from bower and beach

His desperate course he bore,

'Till gasping swimmer ne'er might reach Its rock of safety more.—

On, on he went, and onward, too,

The barque was lessening from his view, Till pitying zephyrs seemed to grow All breathless at the sight of woe,

And the fleeting sail
Sunk down to sleep,

And a voice of wail

Came o'er the deep

A voice, with Heaven's especial charm,
Once more to nerve his failing arm.

His hand is on the pirate's stern.

His piteous plaint hath brought

The Pagan band, unused to burn
With human love, to look and learn
What deeds that power hath wrought.

'I am a peasant," thus he spake,
"These hands the token bear;

I have no hope but her ye take,
No wealth beyond the heart ye break,

No ransom but my prayer.

Then think upon my fate forlorn,

And take, oh take, these limbs outworn,

Nor listen to my grief with scorn,

Because ye do not share.

O'er captives from the cruel mart, How dear the office to sustain

Toil, sorrow, poverty, or pain,

With love's confiding heart

How dear the wedded hopes that thrall
The soul to which those hopes are all,
How mutual chains can never gall,
Like diadems apart."

They listened to the suppliant's prayer,

And raised him to the deck,
And stood in silence round the pair,

To marvel that a maid so fair

Clung round a Christian neck.

And then the breeze, which late was spent,
Sprang up again, and on they went,

Still sailing to the low lament

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Of joy's untimely wreck.

Oh whither, whither, dost thou rove

Beneath the midnight sky?

And wherefore hast thou stolen the love

Of peasant poor as I?

"Take back, take back my promised bride, Weak hands for toil hath she,

And I will work the double tide,

And bless thee on my knee!"