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And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees;
And how she tended him in vain-
And meekly strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain:

And how she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay:

His dying words-but when I reach'd That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My faltering voice and pausing harp Disturb'd her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrill'd my guiltless Genevieve; The music and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherish'd long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blush'd with love and maiden shame; And, like the murmurs of a dream, I heard her breathe my name.

I saw her bosom heave and swell,
Heave and swell with inward sighs--
I could not choose but love to see
Her gentle bosom rise.

Her wet cheek glow'd: she stept aside
As conscious of my look she stepp'd:
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She flew to me and wept.

She half-enclosed me with her arms,

She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, look'd up, And gazed upon my face.

"Twas partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 'twas a bashful art,
That I might rather feel than see
The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;

And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

And now once more a tale of wo,
A woful tale of love I sing:
For thee, my Genevieve! it sighs,
And trembles on the string.

When last I sang the cruel scorn

That crazed this bold and lonely knight And how he roam'd the mountain woods, Nor rested day or night

I promised thee a sister tale

Of man's perfidious cruelty:

Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong Befell the Dark Ladie.

67

LEWTI, OR THE CIRCASSIAN LOVECHANT.

Ar midnight by the stream I roved,

To forget the form I loved.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
for Lewti is not kind.
Depart;

The moon was high, the moonlight gleam
And the shadow of a star
Heaved upon Tamaha's stream;

But the rock shone brighter far,
The rock half-shelter'd from my view
By pendent boughs of tressy yew-
So shines my Lewti's forehead fair,
Gleaming through her sable hair.
Image of Lewti! from my mind
Depart; for Lewti is not kind.

I saw a cloud of palest hue,

Onward to the moon it pass'd;
Still brighter and more bright it grew,
With floating colours not a few,

Till it reach'd the moon at last:
Then the cloud was wholly bright
With a rich and amber light!
And so with many a hope I seek,

And with such joy I find my Lewti:
And even so my pale wan cheek

Drinks in as deep a flush of beauty! Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind, If Lewti never will be kind.

The little cloud-it floats away,

Away it goes; away so soon?
Alas! it has no power to stay;
Its hues are dim, its hues are gray-
Away it passes from the moon!
How mournfully it seems to fly,
Ever fading more and more,
To joyless regions of the sky-

And now 'tis whiter than before!
As white as my poor cheek will be,
When, Lewti! on my couch I lie,

A dying man for love of thee.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind-
And yet thou didst not look unkind.

I saw a vapour in the sky,
Thin, and white, and very high;

I ne'er beheld so thin a cloud

Perhaps the breezes that can fly
Now below and now above,
Have snatch'd aloft the lawny shroud

Of lady fair-that died for love.
For maids, as well as youths, have perish'd
From fruitless love too fondly cherish'd.
Nay, treacherous image! leave my mind-
For Lewti never will be kind.

Hush my heedless feet from under Slip the crumbling banks for ever: Like echoes to a distant thunder,

They plunge into the gentle river. The river-swans have heard my tread, And startle from their reedy bed.

O beauteous birds! methinks ye measure
Your movements to some heavenly tune!
beauteous birds! 'tis such a pleasure
To see you move beneath the moon,
I would it were your true delight
To sleep by day and wake all night.

I know the place where Lewti lies,
When silent night has closed her eyes:
It is a breezy jasmine bower,
The nightingale sings o'er her head:

Voice of the night! had I the power
That leafy labyrinth to thread,

And creep, like thee, with soundless tread,
I then might view her bosom white
Heaving lovely to my sight,

As these two swans together heave
On the gently swelling wave.

O! that she saw me in a dream,

And dreamt that I had died for care; All pale and wasted I would seem, Yet fair withal, as spirits are! I'd die, indeed, if I might see Her bosom heave, and heave for me! Soothe, gentle image! soothe my mind! To-morrow Lewti may be kind.

1795.

THE PICTURE, OR THE LOVER'S RESOLUTION.

Easily caught, ensnare him, O ye nymphs,
Ye Oreads chaste, ye dusky Dryades!

And you, ye earth-winds! you that make at morn
The dew-drops quiver on the spider's 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.

This is my hour of triumph! I can now
With my own fancies play the merry fool,
And laugh away worse folly, being free.
Here will I seat myself, beside this old,
Hollow, and weedy oak, which ivy-twine
Clothes as with network: here will I couch my
limbs,

Close by this river, in this silent shade,
As safe and sacred from the step of man
As an invisible world-unheard, unseen,
And listening only to the pebbly brook
That murmurs with a dead, yet tinkling sound;
Or to the bees, that in the neighbouring trunk
Make honey-hoards. The breeze that visits me
Was never love's accomplice, never raised
The tendril ringlets from the maiden's brow,
And the blue, delicate veins above her cheek;
Ne'er played the wanton-never half-disclosed

THROUGH Weeds and thorns, and matted under- The maiden's snowy bosom, scattering thence

wood

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,
Playmate, or guide! The master-passion quell'd,
I feel that I am free. With dun-red bark
The fir trees, and th' 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 lovelorn 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

Eye-poisons for some love-distemper'd youth,
Who ne'er henceforth may see an aspen grove
Shiver in sunshine, but his feeble heart
Shall flow away like a dissolving thing.

Sweet breeze! thou only, if I guess aright,
Liftest the feathers of the robin's breast,
That swells its little breast, so full of song,
Singing above me, on the mountain ash.
And thou too, desert stream! no pool of thine,
Though clear as lake in latest summer eve,
Did e'er reflect the stately virgin's robe,
The face, the form divine, the downcast look
Contemplative! Behold! her open palm
Presses her cheek and brow! her elbow rests
On the bare branch of half-uprooted tree,
That leans towards its mirror! Who erewhile
Had from her countenance turn'd, or look'd by
stealth,

(For fear is true love's cruel nurse,) he now
With steadfast gaze and unoffending eye,
Worships the watery idol, dreaming hopes
Delicious to the soul, but fleeting, vain,
E'en as that phantom world on which he gazed,
But not unheeded gazed! for see, ah! see,
The sportive tyrant with her left hand plucks
The heads of tall flowers that behind her grow,
Lychnis, and willow-herb, and fox-glove bells:
And suddenly, as one that toys with time,
Scatters them on the pool! Then all the charm
Is broken-all that phantom world so fair
Vanishes, and a thousand circlets spread,
And each misshapes the other. Stay a while

Poor youth, who scarcely darest lift up thine eyes!
The stream will soon renew its smoothness, soon
The visions will return! And lo! he stays:
And soon the fragments dim of lovely forms
Come trembling back, unite, and now once more
The pool becomes a mirror; and behold
Each wild-flower on the marge inverted there,
And there the half-uprooted tree-but where,
O where the virgin's snowy arm, that lean'd
On its bare branch? He turns, and she is gone!
Homeward she steals through many a woodland

maze

Which he shall seek in vain. Ill-fated youth!
Go, day by day, and waste thy manly prime
In mad love-yearning by the vacant brook,
Till sickly thoughts bewitch thine eyes, and thou
Behold'st her shadow still abiding there,

The Naiad of the mirror !

Not to thee,

O wild and desert stream! belongs this tale:
Gloomy and dark art thou-the crowded firs
Spire from thy shores, and stretch across thy bed,
Making thee doleful as a cavern-well:
Save when the shy kingfishers build their nest
On thy steep banks, no loves hast thou, wild
stream!

This be my chosen haunt-emancipate
From passion's dreams, a freeman, and alone,
I rise and trace its devious course. O lead,
Lead me to deeper shades and lonelier glooms.
Lo stealing through the canopy of firs,
How fair the sunshine spots that mossy rock,
Isle of the river, whose disparted waves
Dart off asunder with an angry sound,
How soon to reunite! And see they meet,
Each in the other lost and found: and see
Placeless, as spirits, one soft water-sun
Throbbing within them, heart at once and eye!
With its soft neighbourhood of filmy clouds,
The stains and shadings of forgotten tears,
Dimness o'erswum with lustre ! Such the hour
Of deep enjoyment, following love's brief feuds ;
And hark, the noise of a near waterfall!
pass forth into light-I find myself
Beneath a weeping birch, (most beautiful
Of forest-trees, the lady of the woods,)
Hard by the brink of a tall weedy rock
That overbrows the cataract. How bursts
The landscape on my sight! Two crescent hills
Fold in behind each other, and so make

A circular vale, and land-lock'd, as might seem,
With brook and bridge, and gray stone cottages,
Half hid by rocks and fruit trees. At my feet
The whortleberries are bedewed with spray,
Dash'd upwards by the furious waterfall.
How solemnly the pendent ivy mass
Swings in its winnow: all the air is calm.

Holds loosely its small handful of wild-flowers, Unfilleted, and of unequal lengths.

A curious picture, with a master's haste
Sketch'd on a strip of pinky-silver skin,
Peel'd from the birchen bark! Divinest maid!
Yon bark her canvass, and those purple berries
Her pencil! See, the juice is scarcely dried
On the fine skin! She has been newly here;
And lo! yon patch of heath has been her couch-
The pressure still remains! O blessed couch!
For this mayest thou flower early, and the sun,
Slanting at eve, rest bright, and linger long
Upon thy purple bells! O Isabel!
Daughter of genius! stateliest of our maids!
More beautiful than whom Alcæus woo'd,
The Lesbian woman of immortal song!
O child of genius! stately, beautiful,
And full of love to all, save only me,
And not ungentle e'en to me! My heart,
Why beats it thus? Through yonder coppice-wood
Needs must the pathway turn, that leads straight-

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The smoke from cottage chimneys, tinged with Met my advances with impassion'd pride,

light,

Rises in columns; from this house alone,

Close by the waterfall, the column slants,

And feels its ceaseless breeze. But what is this?
That cottage, with its slanting chimney smoke,
And close beside its porch a sleeping child,
His dear head pillow'd on a sleeping dog-

One arm between its fore-legs, and the hand

That kindled love with love. And when her sire, Who in his dream of hope already grasp'd

The golden circlet in his hand, rejected

My suit with insult, and in memory

Of ancient feuds pour'd curses on my head,
Her blessings overtook and baffled them!

But thou art stern, and with unkindly countenance

Art inly reasoning whilst thou listenest to me.

ANDOVAL.

Anxiously, Henry! reasoning anxiously, But Oropeza

EARL HENRY.

Blessings gather round her!

Within this wood there winds a secret passage,
Beneath the walls, which opens out at length
Into the gloomiest covert of the garden-
The night ere my departure to the army,

She, nothing trembling, led me through that gloom,
And to that covert by a silent stream,
Which, with one star reflected near its marge,
Was the sole object visible around me.
No leaflet stirr'd; the air was almost sultry;
So deep, so dark, so close the umbrage o'er us!
No leaflet stirr'd;-yet pleasure hung upon
The gloom and stillness of the balmy night-air.
A little further on an arbour stood,

Fragrant with flowering trees-I well remember
What an uncertain glimmer in the darkness

I would exchange my unblench'd state with hers.—
Friend! by that winding passage, to that bower
I now will go-all objects there will teach me
Unwavering love, and singleness of heart.
Go, Sandoval! I am prepared to meet her-

Say nothing of me-I myself will seek her-
Nay, leave me, friend! I cannot bear the torment
And keen inquiry of that scanning eye.

[EARL HENRY retires into the wood

SANDOVAL, (alone.)

O Henry! always strivest thou to be great
By thine own act-yet art thou never great
But by the inspiration of great passion.
The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
And shape themselves: from earth to heaven they
stand,

As though they were the pillars of a temple,
Built by Omnipotence in its own honour!
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit
Is fled the mighty columns were but sand,

Their snow-white blossoms made-thither she led And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins!

me,

To that sweet bower! Then Oropeza trembled—

I heard her heart beat-if 'twere not my own.

SANDOVAL.

A rude and scaring note, my friend!

EARL HENRY.

O! no!

I have small memory of aught but pleasure.
Th' inquietudes of fear, like lesser streams
Still flowing, still were lost in those of love:
So love grew mightier from the fear, and nature,
Fleeing from pain, shelter'd herself in joy.
The stars above our heads were dim and steady,
Like eyes suffused with rapture. Life was in us:
We were all life, each atom of our frames
A living soul-I vow'd to die for her:
With the faint voice of one who, having spoken,
Relapses into blessedness, I vow'd it:

That solemn vow, a whisper scarcely heard,
A murmur breathed against a lady's ear.
O! there is joy above the name of pleasure,
Deep self-possession, an intense repose.

SANDOVAL, (with a sarcastic smile.)
No other than as eastern sages paint,
The god, who floats upon a lotos leaf,
Dreams for a thousand ages; then awaking,
Creates a world, and smiling at the bubble,
Relapses into bliss.

EARL HENRY.

Ah! was that bliss

Fear'd as an alien, and too vast for man?
For suddenly, impatient of its silence,
Did Oropeza, starting, grasp my forehead.

I caught her arms; the veins were swelling on

them.

Through the dark bower she sent a hollow voice,
O! what if all betray me? what if thou?

I swore, and with an inward thought that seem'd
The purpose and the substance of my being,
I swore to her, that were she red with guilt,

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN,

WHOM THE AUTHOR HAD KNOWN IN THE DAY

OF HER INNOCENCE.

MYRTLE-LEAF that, ill-besped,

Pinest in the gladsome ray, Soil'd beneath the common tread,

Far from thy protecting spray!

When the partridge o'er the sheaf

Whirr'd along the yellow vale, Sad I saw thee, headless leaf!

Love the dalliance of the gale.

Lightly didst thou, foolish thing!

Heave and flutter to his sighs, While the flatterer, on his wing, Woo'd and whispered thee to rise.

Gayly from thy mother-stalk

Wert thou danced and wafted highSoon on this unshelter'd walk Flung to fade, to rot, and die.

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN AT THE THEATRE.

MAIDEN, that with sullen brow

Sittest behind those virgins gay, Like a scorch'd and mildew'd bough, Leafless 'mid the blooms of May!

Him who lured thee and forsook,

Oft I watch'd 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 wo:
With a musing melancholy

Inly arm'd, 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 sky-lark and forlorn,

While she moults the firstling plumes, That had skimm'd the tender corn,

Or the bean-field's odorous blooms;

Scon with renovated wing

Shall she dare a loftier flight, Upward to the day-star spring,

And embathe in heavenly light.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM. NOR cold nor stern my soul! yet I detest

These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy throng, Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast, In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not music's genuine power, nor deign
To melt at nature's passion-warbled plaint;
But when the long-breathed singer's uptrill'd strain
Bursts in a squall-they gape for wonderment.

Hark the deep buzz of vanity and hate!

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer
My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,
While the pert captain, or the primmer priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

O give me, from this heartless scene released,
To hear our old musician, blind and gray,
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kiss'd,)
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glossy lake, O let me hide
Unheard, unseen, behind the alder trees,
For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied,
On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the outhouse shed

Makes the cock shrilly on the rain-storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of wo, Ballad of shipwreck'd sailor floating dead,

Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice remeasures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures

The things of nature utter; birds or trees, Or moan of ocean gale in weedy caves,

Or where the stiff grass 'mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.

THE KEEPSAKE.

THE tedded hay, the first-fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The fox-glove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath th' up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk

By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,
Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not !*
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has work'd (the flowers which most she knew 1
loved,)

And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.

In the cool morning twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyous restlessness, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze, Over their dim, fast-moving shadows hung, Making a quiet image of disquiet In the smooth, scarcely-moving river-pool. There, in that bower where first she own'd her love, And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretch'd The silk upon the frame, and work'd her name Between the moss-rose and forget-me-notHer own dear name, with her own auburn hair! That forced to wander till sweet spring return, I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look, Her voice, (that even in her mirthful mood Has made me wish to steal away and weep,) Nor yet th' entrancement of that maiden kiss With which she promised, that when spring re

turn'd,

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