Fails to disturb the joy of lover's praise.

Ah! think not vanity alone doth deck

With rounded pearls the young girl's innocent

neck,

Who in her duller days contented tries

The homely robe that with no rival vies,

But on the happy night she hopes to meet

The one to whom she comes with trembling feet,
With crimson roses decks her bosom fair,

Warm as the thoughts of love all glowing there,
Because she must his favourite colours wear;
Andall the bloom and beauty of her youth
Can scarce repay, she thinks, her lover's truth.

Vain is the argument so often moved,

"Who feels no jealousy hath never loved;"
She whose quick fading comes before her tomb,

Is jealous even of her former bloom.

1

Restless she pines; because, to her distress, Que charm the more is now one claim the less

On his regard whose words are her chief treasures, And by whose love alone her worth she measures.

Gertrude of La Garaye, thy heart is sore;

A worm is gnawing at the rose's core,

A doubt corrodeth all thy tender trust,

The freshness of thy day is choked in dust.
Not for the pain-although the pain be great,

Not for the change-though changed be all thy

state;

But for a sorrow dumb and unrevealed,

Most from its cause with mournful care con

cealed

From Claud-who goes and who returns with

sighs

And gazes on his wife with wistful eyes,

And muses in his brief and cheerless rides

If her dull mood will mend; and inly chides

His own sad spirit, that sinks down so low,
Instead of lifting her from all her woe;

And thinks if he but loved her less, that he
Could cheer her drooping soul with gaiety.
But wonders evermore that Beauty's loss

To such a soul should seem so sore a cross.

Until one evening in that quiet hush

That lulls the falling day, when all the gush.
Of various sounds seems buried with the sun,
He told his thought.

As winter streamlets run,

Freed by some sudden thaw, and swift make

way

Into the natural channels where they play,

So leaped her young heart to his tender tone,

So, answering to his warmth, resumed her own; And all her doubt and all her grief confest, Leaning her faint head on his faithful breast.

"Not always, Claud, did I my beauty prize;
Thy words first made it precious in my eyes,
And till thy fond voice made the gift seem rare,
Nor tongue nor mirror taught me I was fair.

I recked no more of beauty in that day

Of happy girlishness and childlike play,

Than some poor woodland bird who stays his

flight

On some low bough when summer days are

bright,

And in that pleasant sunshine sits and sings,

And beaks the plumage of his glistening wings,

Recks of the passer-by who stands to praise

His feathered smoothness and his thrilling lays.

But now, I make my moan-I make my moan—

I weep the brightness lost, the beauty gone;
Because, now, fading is to fall from thee,

As the dead fruit falls blighted from the tree;
For thee,—not vanished loveliness,—I weep;

My beauty was a spell, thy love to keep;

For I have heard and read how men forsake
When time and tears that gift of beauty take,

Nor care although the heart they leave may break!"

A husband's love was there-a husband's love

Strong, comforting, all other loves above;

On her bowed neck he laid his tender hand,

And his voice steadied to his soul's command:
"Oh! thou mistaken and unhappy child,
Still thy complainings, for thy words are wild.
Thy beauty, though so perfect, was but one