Who loved and pitied me in life's young day, Narrow, and narrower still, the circle grows.

Thou knowest-for thou hast proved-the dreary shade

A first-born's loss casts over lonely days;

And

gone is now the pale fond smile, that made In my dim future, yet, a path of rays.

Gone, the dear comfort of a voice whose sound
Came like a beacon-bell, heard clear above
The whirl of violent waters surging round;
Speaking to shipwrecked ears of help and love.

The joy that budded on my own youth's bloom, When life wore still a glory and a gloss,

Is hidden from me in the silent tomb;

Smiting with premature unnatural loss,

So that my very soul is wrung with pain,

Meeting old friends whom most I love to see. Where are the younger lives, since these remain? I weep the eyes that should have wept for me!

But all the more I cling to those who speak

Like thee, in tones unaltered by my change; Greeting my saddened glance, and faded cheek, With the same welcome that seemed sweet and

strange

In early days when I, of gifts made proud,

:

That could the notice of such men beguile,

Stood listening to thee in some brilliant crowd,

With the warm triumph of a youthful smile.

Oh! little now remains of all that was !

Even for this gift of linking measured words,

My heart oft questions, with discouraged pause, Does music linger in the slackening chords?

Yet, friend, I feel not that all power is fled, While offering to thee, for the kindly years, The intangible gift of thought, whose silver thread Heaven keeps untarnished by our bitterest tears.

So, in the brooding calm that follows woe,
This tale of LA GARAYE I fain would tell,-

As, when some earthly storm hath ceased to blow,
And the huge mounting sea hath ceased to

swell;

After the maddening wrecking and the roar,

The wild high dash, the moaning sad retreat, Some cold slow wave creeps faintly to the shore,

And leaves a white shell at the gazer's feet.

Take, then, the poor gift in thy faithful hand;

Measure its worth not merely by my own,

But hold it dear as gathered from the sand

Where so much wreck of youth and hope lies strown.

So, if in years to come my words abide―

Words of the dead to stir some living brainWhen thoughtful readers lay my book aside, Musing on all it tells of joy and pain,

Towards thee, good heart, towards thee their thoughts shall roam,

Whose unforsaking faith time hath not riven; And to their minds this just award shall come,

'Twas a TRUE friend to whom such thanks

were given !

INTRODUCTION.

Ir is pleasant to me to be able to assure my readers that the story I have undertaken to versify is in no respect a fiction. I have added nothing to the beautiful and striking simplicity of the events it details. I have respected that mournful 66 romance of real life" too much to spoil its lessons by any poetical licence. Nothing is mine in this story but the language in which it is told. The portrait of the Countess de la Garaye is copied from an authentic picture preserved in one of the religious houses of Dinan, in Brittany, where the Hospital of Incurables,