His eyes grew cold-his voice grew strange-
They only grew more dear.
She served him meekly, anxiously,
With love-half faith, half fear.

And can a fond and faithful heart

Be worthless in those eyes

For which it beats ?-Ah! wo to those
Who such a heart despise.

Poor child! what lonely days she passed.
With nothing to recall

But bitter taunts, and careless words,
And looks more cold than all.

Alas! for love, that sits at home,
Forsaken, and yet fond;

The grief that sits beside the hearth,
Life hast no grief beyond.

He left her, but she followed him—
She thought he could not bear
When she had left her home for him
To look on her despair.

Adown the strange and mighty stream
She took her lonely way!
The stars at night her pilots were,
As was the sun by day.

Yet mournfully-how mournfully ;—
The Indian looked behind,
When the last sound of voice or step
Died on the midnight wind.

Yet still adown the gloomy stream
She plied her weary oar;

Her husband-he had left their home,
And it was home no more.

She found him-but she found in vain-
He spurned her from his side;

He said, her brow was all too dark,
For her to be his bride.

She grasped his hands,-her own were cold,-
And silent turned away,

As she had not a tear to shed,
And not a word to say.

And pale as death she reached her boat,
And guided it along;

With broken voice she strove to raise

A melancholy song.

None watched the lonely Indian girl,—

She passed unmarked of all,
Until they saw her slight canoe
Approach the mighty Fall !

Upright, within that slender boat
They saw the pale girl stand,

Her dark hair streaming far behind-
Upraised her desperate hand.

The air is filled with shriek and shout

They call, but call in vain;

The boat amid the waters dashed'Twas never seen again!

THE LILY OF THE VALLEY.

"A fair young face-yet mournful in its youth-
Brooding above sad thoughts."

Ir is the last token of love and of thee!
Thy once faith is broken, thou false one to me.
I think on the letters with which I must part;
Too dear are the fetters which wind round my heart.

Thy words were enchanted—and ruled me at will;
My spirit is haunted, remembering them still.
So earnest, so tender-the full heart was there;
Ah! song might surrender its lute in despair.

• Niagara.

I deemed that I knew thee as none ever knew;
That 'twas mine to subdue thee, and thine to be true.
I deemed to my keeping thy memory had brought
The depths that were sleeping of innermost thought.

The bitter concealings life's treacheries teach,
The long-subdued feelings the world can not reach-
Thy mask to the many was worn not for me;
I saw thee-can any seem like unto thee?

No other can know thee as I, love, have known,
No future will show thee a love like mine own.
That love was no passion that walketh by day,
A fancy-a fashion that flitteth away.

'Twas life's whole emotion-a storm in its might-
'Twas deep as the ocean, and silent as night.
It swept down life's flowers, the fragile and fair,
The heart had no powers from passion to spare.

Thy faults but endeared thee, so stormy and wild
My lover! I feared thee as feareth a child.
They seemed but the shrouding of spirit too high,
As vapors come crowding the sunniest sky.

I worshipped in terror a comet above;
Ah! fatal the error-ah! fatal the love!
For thy sake life never will charm me again;
Its beauty for ever is vanished and vain.

Thou canst not restore me the depth and the truth
Of the hopes that come o'er me in earliest youth.
Their gloss is departed—their magic is flown,
And sad and faint-hearted I wander alone.

"Tis vain to regret me-you will not regret;
You will try to forget me-you can not forget.
We shall hear of each other-O! misery to hear
Those names from another that once were so dear!

What slight words will sting us that breathe of the past
And slight things will bring us thoughts fated to last.
The fond hopes that centred in thee are all dead,
But the iron has entered the soul where they fed.

Like others in seeming, we'll walk through life's part,
Cold, careless, and dreaming-with death in the heart,
No hope-no repentance; the spring of life o'er;
All died with that sentence--I love thee no more!

DISENCHANTMENT.

Do not ask me why I loved him,
Love's cause is to love unknown;
Faithless as the past has proved him,
Once his heart appeared mine own.
Do not say he did not merit

All my fondness, all my truth;
Those in whom love dwells inherit
Every dream that haunted youth.
He might not be all I dreamed him,
Noble, generous, gifted, true,
Not the less I fondly deemed him,

All those flattering visions drew.
All the hues of old romances

By his actual self grew dim; Bitterly I mock the fancies

That once found their life in him.
From the hour by him enchanted,

From the moment when we met,
Henceforth with one image haunted,
Life may never more forget.
All my nature changed-his being

Seemed the only source of mine.
Fond heart, hadst thou no foreseeing
Thy sad future to divine?

Once, upon myself relying,

All I asked were words and thought; Many hearts to mine replying,

Owned the music that I brought. Eager, spiritual, and lonely,

Visions filled the fairy hour,

Deep with love-though love was only
Not a presence, but a power.

But from that first hour I met thee,
All caught actual life from you.
Alas! how can I forget thee,
Thou who madest the fancied true?
Once my wide world was ideal,

Fair it was-ah! very fair;
Wherefore hast thou made it real?
Wherefore is thy image there?

Ah! no more to me is given

Fancy's far and fairy birth; Chords upon my lute are riven, Never more to sound on earth. Once, sweet music could it borrow From a look, a word, a tone; I could paint another's sorrow— Now I think but of mine own. Life's dark waves have lost the glitter Which at morning-tide they wore, And the well within is bitter; Naught its sweetness may restore : For I know how vainly given

Life's most precious things may be,

I ove that might have looked on heaven, Even as it looked on thee.

Ah, farewell!-with that word dying, Hope and love must perish too : For thy sake themselves denying, What is truth with thee untrue? Farewell!-'tis a dreary sentence,

Like the death-doom of the grave, May it wake in thee repentance, Stinging when too late to save!

THE CHANGE.

THY features do not wear the light
They wore in happier days;
Though still there may be much to love,
There's little left to praise.

The rose has faded from thy cheek-
There's scarce a blush left now;
And there's a dark and weary sign
Upon thine altered brow.

Thy raven hair is dashed with gray,
Thine eyes are dim with tears;
And care, before thy youth is past,
Has done the work of years.
Beautiful wreck! for still thy face,
Though changed, is very fair :
Like beauty's moonlight, left to show
Her morning sun was there.

Come, here are friends and festival,
Recall thine early smile;

And wear yon wreath, whose glad red rose
Will lend its bloom awhile.

Come, take thy site, and sing again

The song you used to sing

The birdlike song :-See, though unused,
The lute has every string,

What, doth thy hand forget the lute ?
Thy brow reject the wreath?
Alas! whate'er the change above,-

There's more of change beneath!

The smile may come, the smile may go,
The blush shine and depart;
But farewell when their sense is quenched
Within the breaking heart.

And such is thine: 'tis vain to seek

The shades of past delight:

Fling down the wreath, and break the lute; They mock our souls to-night.

LOVE.

SHE prest her slight hand to her brow, or pain Or bitter thoughts were passing there. The room Had no light but that from the fireside, Which showed, then hid her face. How very pale It looked when over it the glimmer shone! Is not the rose companion of the spring? Then wherefore has the red-leaved flower forgotten Her cheek? The tears stood in her large dark eyes, Her beautiful dark eyes-like hyacinth stars, When shines their shadowy glory through the dew That summer nights have wept ;-she felt there not, Her heart was far away! Her fragile form, Like the young willow when from the first time The wind sweeps o'er it rudely, had not lost Its own peculiar grace; but it was bowed By sickness, or by worse than sickness-sorrow! And thus is Love!-O! why should woman love; Wasting her dearest feelings, till health, hope, Happiness, are but things of which henceforth She'll only know the name? Her heart is seared i A sweet light has been thrown upon its life, To make its darkness the more terrible. And this is Love!

JULIET AFTER THE MASQUERADE.

SHE left the festival, for it seemed dim
Now that her eye no longer dwelt on him,

And sought her chamber,-gazed (then turned away)
Upon a mirror that before her lay,

Half fearing, half be eving her sweet face
Would surely claim wi hin his memory place.
The hour was late, and that night her light foot
Had been the constant echo of the lute;
Yet sought she not her pillow, the cool air
Came from the casement, and it lured her there.
The terrace was beneath, and the pale moon

Shone o'er the couch which she had pressed at noon,
Soft-lingering o'er some minstrel's lovelorn page,—
Alas, tears are the poet's heritage!

She flung her on that couch, but not for sleep;
No, it was only that the wind might steep
Her fevered lip in its delicious dew:

Her brow was burning, and aside she threw
Her cap and plume, and, loosened from its fold,
Came o'er her neck and face a shower of gold,

A thousand curls. It was a solitude

Made for young hearts in love's first dreaming mood:-
Beneath the garden lay, filled with rose trees
Whose sighings came like passion on the breeze.
Two graceful statues of the Parian stone
So finely shaped, that as the moonlight shone
The breath of life seemed to their beauty given,
But less the life of earth than that of heaven.
'Twas PSYCHE and her boy-god, so divine
They turned the terrace to an idol shrine,
With its white vases and their summer share
Of flowers, like altars raised to that sweet pair.

And there the maiden leant, still in her ear
The whisper dwelt of that young cavalier;
It was no fancy, he had named the name

Of love, and at that thought her cheek grew flame :
It was the first time her young ear had heard
A lover's burning sigh, or silver word;

Her thoughts were, all confusion, but most sweet,-
Her heart beat high, but pleasant was its beat.
She murmured over many a snatch of song
That might to her own feelings now belong;
She thought upon old histories she had read,
And placed herself in each high heroine's stead,
Then woke her lute,-O! there is little known
Of music's power till aided by love's own.
And this is happiness: 0. love will last
When all that made it happiness is past,-
When all its hopes are as the glittering toys
Time present offers, time to come destroys,-
When they have been too often crushed to earth,
For further blindness to their little worth,-
When fond illusions have dropt one by one,
Like pearls from a rich carkanet, till none
Are left upon life's soiled and naked string,-
And this is all what time will ever bring.
-And that fair girl,-what can the heart foresee
Of her young love, and of its destiny?
There is a white cloud o'er the moon, its form
Is very light, and yet there sleeps the storm:
It is an omen, it may tell the fate

Of love known all too soon, repented all too late.

THE FAIRY QUEEN SLEEPING.

She lay upon a bank, the favorite haunt
Of the spring wind in its first sunshine hour,
For the luxuriant strawberry blossoms spread
Like a snow-shower there, and violets
Bowed down their purple vases of perfume
About her pillow,-linked in a gay band
Floated fantastic shapes, these were her guards,
Her lithe and rainbow elves.

We have been o'er land and sea
Seeking lovely dreams for thee,-
Where is there we have not been
Gathering gifts for our sweet queen?
We are come with sound and sight
Fit for fairy's sleep to-night,—

First around thy couch shall sweep Odors, such as roses weep When the earliest spring rain Calls them into life again; Next upon thine ear shall float Many a low and silver note, Stolen from a darkeyed maid When her lover's serenade, Rising as the stars grew dim, Wakened from her thoughts of him. There shall steal o'er lip and cheek Gales, but all too light to break Thy soft rest,-such gales as hide All day orange-flowers inside, Or that, while hot noontide, dwell In the purple hyacinth bell; And before thy sleeping eyes Shall come glorious pageantries, Palaces of gems and gold, Such as dazzle to behold.-Gardens, in which every tree Seems a world of bloom to be,Fountains, whose clear waters show The white pearls that lie below.During slumber's magic reign Other times shall live again; First thou shalt be young and free In thy days of liberty,— Then again be wooed and won By the stately OBERON. Or thou shalt descend to earth, And see all of mortal birth. No, that world's too full of care For e'en dreams to linger there. But, behold, the sun is set, And the diamond coronet Of the young moon is on high Waiting for our revelry; And the dew is on the flower, And the stars proclaim our hour; Long enough thy rest has been, Wake, TITANIA, wake our queen!

291

A CHILD SCREENING A DOVE FROM A HAWK

Ay, screen thy favorite dove, fair child,

Ay, screen it if you may,—

Yet I misdoubt thy trembling hand

Will scare the hawk away.

That dove will die, that child will weep,-

Is this their destinie?

Ever amid the sweets of life

Some evil thing must be.

Ay, moralize,-is it not thus
We've mourned our hope and love?
Alas! there's tears for every eye,
A hawk for every dove.

LINES

WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF A GIRL BURNING A LOVE

LETTER.

The lines were filled with many a tender thing,

All the impassioned heart's fond communing

I TOOK the scroll: I could not brook,
An eye to gaze on it save mine;

I could not bear another look

Should dwell upon one thought of thine. My lamp was burning by my side,

I held thy letter to the flame,

I marked the blaze swift o'er it glide,
It did not even spare thy name.
Soon the light from the embers past,
I felt so sad to see it die,
So bright at first, so dark at last,

I feared it was love's history.

===

CPIN AND SWALLOWS FLYING FROM WINTER.

"We fly from the cold."

AWAY, away, o'er land and sea,
This is now no home for me;
My light wings may never bear
Northern cloud or winter air.
Murky shades are gathering fast,
Sleet and snow are on the blast,
Trees from which the leaves are fled,
Flowers whose very roots are dead,
Grass of its green blade bereft,
These are all that now are left.
-Linger here another day,
I shall be as sad as they ;
My companions fly with spring,
I too must be on the wing.

Where are the sweet gales whose song
Wont to waft my darts along?
Scented airs! O, not like these,
Rough as they which sweep the seas;
But those sighs of rose which bring
Incense from their wandering.
Where are the bright flowers that kept
Guard around me while I slept?
Where the sunny eyes whose beams
Wakened ine from my soft dreams?
These are with the swallows gone,-
Beauty's heart is chilled to stone.

O! for some sweet southern clime, Where 'tis ever summer time.— Where, if blossoms fall, their tomb Is amid new birth of bloom,Where green leaves are ever springing, Where the lark is always singing,One of those bright isles which lie Fair beneath an azure sky, Isles of cinnamon and spice, Shadow each of Paradise,Where the flowers shine with dies, Teinted bright from the sunrise,Where the birds which drink their dew, Wave wings of yet brighter hue, And each river's course is rolled Over bed of pearl and gold!

O! for those lime-scented groves
Where the Spanish lover roves,
Tuning to the western star,
His soft song and light guitar,—
Where the dark-haired girls are dancing
Fairies in the moonlight glancing,
With pencilled brows, and radiant eyes,
Like their planet-lighted skies!

Or those clear Italian lakes
Where the silver cygnet makes
Its soft nest of leaf and flower,
A white lily for its bower!
Each of these a home would be,
Fit for beauty and for me:
I must seek their happier sphere
While the Winter lords it here.

LOVE NURSED BY SOLITUDE.

Av, surely, it is here that Love should come, And find (if he may find on earth) a home; Here cast off all the sorrow and the shame The cling like shadows to his very name.

Young Love, thou art belied: they speak of thee,
And souple with thy mention misery;
Talk of the broken heart, the wasted bloom,
The spirit blighted, and the early tomb;
As if these waited on thy golden lot,—

They blame thee for the faults which thou hast not.
Art thou to blame for that they bring on thee
The soil and weight of their mortality?

How can they hope that ever links with hold
Formed, as they form them now, of the harsh gold?
Or worse than even this, how can they think
That vanity will bind the failing link?
How can they dream that thy sweet life will bear
Crowds', palaces', and cities' heartless air?
Where the lip smiles while the heart's desolate,
And courtesy lends its deep mask to hate;
Where looks and thoughts alike must feel the chain,
And naught of life is real but its pain;
Where the young spirit's high imaginings
Are scorned and cast away as idle things;
Where, think or feel, you are foredoomed to be
A marvel and a sign for mockery ;

Where none must wander from the beaten road,—
All alike champ the bit, and feel the goad.
It is not made for thee, young Love! away
To where the green earth laughs to the clear day.
To the deep valley, where a thousand trees
Keep a green court for fairy revelries,-
To some small island on a lonely lake,
Where only swans the diamond waters break-
Where the pines hang in silence o'er the tide,
And the stream gushes from the mountain side;
These, Love, are haunts for thee; where canst thou broos
With thy sweet wings furled but in Solitude.

A GIRL AT HER DEVOTIONS.

SHE was just risen from her bended knee,
But yet peace seemed not with her piety;
For there was paleness upon her young cheek,
And thoughts upon the lips which never speak,
But wring the heart that at the last they break.
Alas! how much of rsery may be read

In that wan forehead, and that bowed down head-
Her eye is on a picture, wo that ever

Love should thus struggle with a vain endeavor
Against itself: it is a common tale,
And ever will be while earth soils prevail
Over earth's happiness; it tells she strove
With silent, secret, unrequited love.

It matters not its history; love has wings
Like lightning, swift and fatal, and it springs
Like a wild flower where it is least expected,
Existing whether cherished or rejected;
Living with only but to be content,
Hopeless, for love is its own element,—
Requiring nothing so that it may be
The martyr of its fond fidelity.

A mystery thou art, thou mighty one!
We speak thy name in beauty, yet we shun
To own thee, Love, a guest; the poet's songs
Are sweetest when their voice to thee belongs,
And hope, sweet opiate, terderness, delight,
Are terms which are thy own peculiar right;
Yet all deny their master,-who will own
His breast thy footstool, and his heart thy throne!

"Tis strange to think if we could fling aside
The masque and mantle that love wears from pride,
How much would be, we now so little guess,
Deep in each heart's undreamed, unsought recess.
The careless smile, like a gay banner borne,
The laugh of merriment, the lip of scorn,-
And for a cloak what is there that can be

So difficult to pierce as gayety?

Too dazzling to be scanned, the haughty brow
Seems to hide something it would not avow;
But rainbow words, light laugh, and thoughtless jest,
These are the bars, the curtain to the breast,
That shuns a scrutiny: and she, whose form
Now bends in grief beneath the bosom's storm,
Has hidden well her wound,-now none are nigh
To mock with curious or with careless eye,
(For love seeks sympathy, a chilling yes,
Strikes at the root of its best happiness.
And mockery is wormwood,) she may dwell
On feelings which that picture may not tel

THE NEGLECTED ONE.

AND there is silence in that lonely hall,
Bare where the waters of the fountain fall.
And the wind's distant murmuring, which takes
Sweet messages from every bud it wakes.
'Tis more than midnight; all the lamps are gone,
Their fragrant oils exhausted,—all but one,
A little silver lamp beside a scroll,

Where a young maiden leant, and poured her soul,
In those last words, the bitter and the brief.
How can they say confiding is relief?
Light are the woes that to the eyelids spring,
Subdued and softened by the tears they bring;
But there are some too long, too well concealed,
Too deeply felt,-that are but once revealed:
Like the withdrawing of the mortal dart,
And then the lifeblood follows from the heart;
Sorrow, before unspoken by a sigh,
But which, once spoken, only hath to die.

Young, very young, the lady was, who now
Bowed on her slender hand her weary brow:
Not beautiful, save when the eager thought
In the soft eyes a sudden beauty wrought:

Not beautiful, save when the cheek's warm blush
Grew eloquent with momentary flush
Of feeling, that made beauty, not to last,
And scarcely caught, so quickly is it past.
-Alas! she knew it well; too early thrown
Mid a cold world, the unloved and the lone,
With no near kindred ties on whom could dwell
Love that so sought to be beloved as well.
Too sensitive for flattery, and too kind
To bear the loneliness by fate assigned,
Her life had been a struggle: long she strove
To fix on things inanimate her love;

On pity, kindness, music, gentle lore,

All that romance could yield of fairy store.

In vain! she loved :-she loved and from that hour
Gone were the quiet loves of bird or flower;
The unread book dropped listless on her knee,
The untouched lute hung on the bending tree
Whose unwreathed boughs no more a pleasant shade
For the lone dreamings of her twilight made.
-Well might she love him: every eye was turned
On that young knight, and bright cheeks brighter burned,
Save one, that grew the paler for his sake:
Alas! for her, whose heart but beat to break;
Who knew too well, not hers the lip or eye
For which the youthful lover swears to die.
How deep, tow merciless, the love represt,
That robs the silent midnight of its rest;
That sees in gathered crowds but one alone;
That hears in mingled footsteps only one;
That turns the poet's page, to only find
Some mournful image for itself designed;
That seeks in music, but the plaining tone
Which secret sorrow whispers is its own!
Alas for the young heart, when love is there,
Its comrade and its confidant, despair!

How often leant in some unnoticed spot,
Her very being by the throng forgot,
Shrunk back to shun the glad lamp's mocking ray,
Passed many a dark and weary hour away,
Watching the young, the beautiful, the bright,
Seeming more lovely in that lonely light;
And as each fair face glided through the dance,
Stealing at some near mirror one swift glance,
Then, starting at the contrast, seek her room,
To weep, at least in solitude and gloom!
And he, her stately idol, he, with eye
Dark as the eagle's in a summer sky,
And darker curls, amid whose raven shade
The very wild wind amorously delayed,

With that bright smile, which makes all others dim,
So proud, so sweet,-what part had she in him?
And yet she loved him: who may say, be still,
To the fond heart that beats not at our will?
'Twas too much wretchedness:-the convent cell,
There might the maiden with her misery dwell.
And that, to-morrow was her chosen doom:
There might her hopes, her feelings, find a tomb.

Her feelings!-no: pray, struggle, weep, condema,— Her feelings, there was hit one grave for them. 'Twas her last night, and she had looked her last, And she must live henceforward in the past. She lingered in the hall,-he had been there; Her pale lips grew yet paler with the prayer That only asked his happiness. She took A blank leaf from an old emblazoned book, Which told love's chronicles; a faint hope stole,— A sweet light o'er the darkness of her soulMight she not leave remembrance, like the wreath, Whose dying flowers their scents on twilight breathe Just one faint tone of music, low and clear, Coming when other songs have left the ear? Might she not tell him how she loved, and pray A mournful memory for some distant day? She took the scroll-what! bare perhaps to scorn The timid sorrow she so long had borne! Silent as death, she hid her face, for shame In rushing crimson to her forehead came; Through the small fingers fell the bitter rain, And tremblingly she closed the leaves again. -The hall is lit with rose, that morning hour, Whose lights are colored by each opening flower: A sweet bird by the casement sat and sang A song so glad, that like a laugh it rang, While its wings shook the jessamine, till the bloom Floated like incense round that joyous room. -They found the maiden: still her face was bowed, As with some shame that might not be avowed; They raised the long hair which her face concealed,And she is dead, her secret unrevealed.

WHEN SHOULD LOVERS BREATHE THEIR VOWS!
WHEN should lovers breathe their vows?
When should ladies hear them?

When the dew is on the boughs,

When none else are near them;

When the moon shines cold and pale,
When the birds are sleeping,
When no voice is on the gale,

When the rose is weeping;
When the stars are bright on high,

Like hopes in young Love's dreaming,
And glancing round the light clouds fly,
Like soft fears to shade their beaming.
The fairest smiles are those that live

On the brow by starlight wreathing;
And the lips their richest incense give
When the sigh is at midnight breathing.
O, softest is the cheek's love-ray

When seen by moonlight hours,
Other roses seek the day,

But blushes are night flowers.
O, when the moon and stars are bright,
When the dew-drops glisten,

Then their vows should lovers plight,
Then should ladies listen!

THE EMERALD RING.

A SUPERSTITION.

Ir is a gem which hath the power to show If plighted lovers keep their faith or no : If faithful, it is like the leaves of spring; If faithless like those leaves when withering. Take back again your emerald gem, There is no color in the stone; It might have graced a diadem,

But now its hue and light are gone! Take back your gift, and give me mineThe kiss that sealed our last love-vow; Ah, other lips have been on thine,

My kiss is lost and sullied now! The gem is pale, the kiss forgot,

And, more than either, you are changed; But my true love has altered not, My heart is broken-not estranged!