I calmed her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous Bride.
MAIDEN, that with sullen brow
Sitt'st behind those virgins gay,
Like a scorched and mildewed bough,
Leafless 'mid the blooms of May!
Him who lured thee and forsook,
Oft I watched with angry gaze,
Fearful saw his pleading look,
Anxious heard his fervid phrase.
Soft the glances of the youth,
Soft his speech, and soft his sigh;
But no sound like simple truth,
But no true love in his eye.
Loathing thy polluted lot,
Hie thee, Maiden, hie thee hence!
Seek thy weeping Mother's cot,
With a wiser innocence.
Thou hast known deceit and folly,
Thou hast felt that vice is woe:
With a musing melancholy
Inly armed, go, Maiden! go.
Mother sage of self-dominion,
Firm thy steps, O Melancholy!
The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion
Is the memory of past folly.
Mute the skylark and forlorn,
While she moults the firstling plumes, That had skimmed the tender corn, Or the bean-field's odorous blooms.
Soon with renovated wing
Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upward to the day-star spring, And embathe in heavenly light.
MYRTLE-LEAF that, ill besped,
Pinest in the gladsome ray,
Soiled beneath the common tread,
Far from thy protecting spray!
When the partridge o'er the sheaf
Whirred along the yellow vale,
Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf!
Love the dalliance of the gale.
Lightly didst thou, foolish thing!
Heave and flutter to his sighs,
While the flatterer, on his wing,
Wooed and whispered thee to rise.
Gayly from thy mother-stalk
Wert thou danced and wafted high
Soon on this unsheltered walk
Flung to fade, to rot and die.
OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION.
THROUGH weeds and thorns, and matted under
I force my way; now climb, and now descend
O'er rocks, or bare or mossy, with wild foot
Crushing the purple whorts; while oft unseen,
Hurrying along the drifted forest-leaves,
The scared snake rustles. Onward still I toil
I know not, ask not whither! A new joy,
Lovely as light, sudden as summer gust,
And gladsome as the first-born of the spring,
Beckons me on, or follows from behind,
The master-passion quelled,
With dun-red bark
The fir-trees, and the unfrequent slender oak,
Forth from this tangle wild of bush and brake
Soar up, and form a melancholy vault
High o'er me, murmuring like a distant sea.
Here Wisdom might resort, and here Remorse; Here too the love-lorn man, who, sick in soul, And of this busy human heart aweary,
Worships the spirit of unconscious life
In tree or wild-flower.-Gentle lunatic!
If so he might not wholly cease to be,
He would far rather not be that he is ;
But would be something that he knows not of,
In winds or waters, or among the rocks!
But hence, fond wretch! breathe not contagion here!
No myrtle-walks are these: these are no groves
Where Love dare loiter! If in sullen mood
He should stray hither, the low stumps shall gore
His dainty feet, the brier and the thorn
Make his plumes haggard. Like a wounded bird
Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye Nymphs,
Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!
And you, ye Earth-winds! you that make at
The dew-drops quiver on the spiders' webs!
You, O ye wingless Airs! that creep between
The rigid stems of heath and bitten furze,
Within whose scanty shade, at summer-noon,
The mother-sheep hath worn a hollow bed—
Ye, that now cool her fleece with dropless damp
Now pant and murmur with her feeding lamb.
Chase, chase him, all ye Fays, and elfin Gnomes!
With prickles sharper than his darts bemock
His little Godship, making him perforce
Creep through a thorn-bush on yon hedgehog's back.
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