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Look down on the scene below,
Where the loving moonbeams tender
Kiss those footsteps in the snow,

AUTHOR TO COMPOSER.

DUAD.

Through thee the rhymer hears his lay,
By voice notes rendered sweet;
Where beauty reigns in bright array,
And fond and faithful meet.
The wedded music's charming art
Yield's him a joy intense;
Its tones a fresh delight impart;

Heart echoing the sense.

When both, by fate's dark doom decreed,
Shall drink of Lethe's spring;

Pure maiden's eyes my words may read,

Dear lips thy notes may sing.

And so our little lyrics live

Enshrined for many a day;

That some a thought to us may give

When we have passed away.

LA MARCHESANA.

Una Pittúra.

Chesnut hair of rich luxuriance rolled in many a massy

fold

O'er her forehead crinkled wavelets rob the sunshine of

its gold.

Seated in the oriel window, where the summer glory

streams

O'er her purple silk-clad shoulders, and with varied radiance beams;

Shines amid the mazy threadings that reflect the am

bient light,

Gleaming with a golden glory, crowning with that radiance bright.

And the chesnut's pink-stained blossoms with her loveliness compare,

Sweeter than the lily's paleness, cream of beauty full and fair.

From the garden she has entered like a newly-gathered

flower,

Bringing all the perfume freshness of the morning's brightest hour:

On a seat her hat is lying, just now it was cast aside, And her jeweled hand is toying with a humming bird's gay pride.

Now she looks up and those clear eyes, speaking with a

modest grace,

Bid you welcome to the friendship of a truly handsome face,

Bid you with retiring glances, be observant of your

place:

Veil your gaze with due obeisance she is of a royal race. From Athene the glaucopis came those eyes of cæsian

ray

Constant in their hyaline changes, "love me not" they always say.

JESSAMINE.

Peeping through the Jessamine

What see I there ?

An ivory shoulder'd maiden,

Braid her ebon hair;

And o'er a Prie-Dieu bow her head,
Whilst her orisons are said.

Peeping through the Jessamine—
What see I now ?

The maiden nestling in her couch,
And the lamp's pale glow

Flickering through the chamber white,

Half in shadow, half in light.

Sweet the breath of Jessamine-
In the dusky air;

Sweeter is the maiden's sigh

On her pillow fair,

Sleeping like a pale blush rose,

Giving odour in repose.

Perish'd is the Jessamine---
And the cottage lorn;

Yet, fond love hath that fair maiden
Like an amulet worn,

Since the dreamings of the night

In that trellis-chamber white.

THE PRIMROSE PATH.

April days when the clouds reveal
Glimpses of azure sky,

April days when the wild bees steal
From their winter nooks and try,
With many a clumsy abortive attempt,
In gleams of sunshine to fly.

Young year days that have passed away

Like the sound of the marriage bells;

Whose tremulous musical memories sway
The soul where a pure love dwells:
Calling back, often in grey beard years,
Love's earliest fancies and fears;

Love's every idle fear:

When the almond tree blossom first opened its leaves Like a sweet hope mid loneliness drear;

First blossom of love how dear:

How dear to the yearning spirit of youth!
How inexpressibly dear.

There is nothing in life so sweet,

There is nothing so sweet so dear;
There is nought in the after months
Like the primrose path of the year.

A dew drop lies on the bosom sweet
Of a delicate pale primrose;

And a single violet grows

On a mossy bank where lovers meet:

A single violet grows,

Leaning over that pale primrose;

Looking into the depths of its pure young life

In the morning's early hour.

And the lustrous tear in its heart of joy
Drinks the hue of the deeper flower:
And reflects in its lucid tremulous wave
A far thought of a purple power!
An imperial purple power

Sees there the first dawn of a nascent hope
In that early morning hour.

Was it a dream or true?

As they first walked forth in the snow;
The listening doubt of an unwhispered thought
Feared to ask, lest a voice should say no!

For the witch-elms stretched their thin bare arms

With a leafless meaning of No.

No! in the frowning sky;

No in each sullen field:

No! in the wind that went howling by

Like a vial of wrath unsealed.

But the heart refuses to yield;

It clings to a wishful prayer,

A chord of sweet music hath compassed it round.

A touch of a soft hand near.

A sweet trammel it cannot untie !

Though the mocking light of the midnight fire
Said alternately "live and die."

Live in the light of vain hopes awhile

In the sadness of truth to die!

Sleep, weary questioner, sleep,

Sink into calm repose;

Think of the old worn classic page

With the words inscribed of the Attic sage-

"From night and chaotic darkness deep The beauty of day arose."

Is it the sound of bells!

Or only the thought of a sound

In the listener's heart that rises and swells
Where hyacinths colour the ground?

Wild hyacinths bending like pensive maids
In the young green taper grass:
Unknown to them the sorrowing mark

Of Apollo's AI; alas!

Yes, in the far distance marriage bells ringing,

Stirring the primroses seen in the lake.

Fancy's wild wood notes the harebells are swinging,

Sweet sleeping memories fondly awake!

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