t

"My God, my land, my father-these did move Me from my bliss of life, that Nature gave, Lower'd softly with a threefold cord of love Down to a silent grave.

"And I went mourning, 'No fair Hebrew boy Shall smile away my maiden blame among The Hebrew mothers'-emptied of all joy, Leaving the dance and song,

"Leaving the olive-gardens far below,

Leaving the promise of my bridal bower, The valleys of grape-loaded vines that glow Beneath the battled tower.

"The light white cloud swam over us. Anon
We heard the lion roaring from his den;
We saw the large white stars rise one by one,
Or, from the darken'd glen,

"Saw God divide the night with flying flame,
And thunder on the everlasting hills.
I heard Him, for He spake, and grief became
A solemn scorn of ills.

"When the next moon was roll'd into the sky, Strength came to me that equall'd my desire. How beautiful a thing it was to die

"It comforts me in this one thought to dwell,

That I subdued me to my father's will; Because the kiss he gave me, ere I fell, Sweetens the spirit still.

"Moreover it is written that my race

Hew'd Ammon, hip and thigh, from Aroer

On Arnon unto Minneth."

Here her face

Glow'd, as I look'd at her.

:

She lock'd her lips she left me where I stood :
"Glory to God," she sang, and past afar,
Thridding the sombre boskage of the wood,
Toward the morning-star.

Losing her carol I stood pensively,

As one that from a casement leans his head,
When midnight bells cease ringing suddenly,
And the old year is dead.

"Alas! alas!" a low voice, full of care,

Murmur'd beside me: "Turn and look on me :

I am that Rosamond, whom men call fair,

If what I was I be.

“Would I had been some maiden coarse and poor!

O me, that I should ever see the light!

Those dragon eyes of anger'd Eleanor
Do hunt me, day and night."

She ceased in tears, fallen from hope and trust :

To whom the Egyptian: "O, you tamely died! You should have clung to Fulvia's waist, and thrust The dagger thro' her side."

With that sharp sound the white dawn's creeping beams,
Stol'n to my brain, dissolved the mystery

Of folded sleep. The captain of my dreams
Ruled in the eastern sky.

Morn broaden'd on the borders of the dark,
Ere I saw her, who clasp'd in her last trance
Her murder'd father's head, or Joan of Arc,
A light of ancient France;

Or her, who knew that Love can vanquish Death
Who kneeling, with one arm about her king,
Drew forth the poison with her balmy breath,
Sweet as new buds in Spring.

No memory labours longer from the deep

Gold-mines of thought to lift the hidden ore

That glimpses, moving up, than I from sleep
To gather and tell o'er

Each little sound and sight.

With what dull pain

Compass'd, how eagerly I sought to strike
Into that wondrous track of dreams again!
But no two dreams are like.

M

As when a soul laments, which hath been blest,
Desiring what is mingled with past years,

In yearnings that can never be exprest
By signs or groans or tears;

Because all words, tho' cull'd with choicest art,
Failing to give the bitter of the sweet,

Wither beneath the palate, and the heart
Faints, faded by its heat.

MARGARET.

1.

O SWEET pale Margaret,
O rare pale Margaret,

What lit your eyes with tearful power,
Like moonlight on a falling shower?
Who lent you, love, your mortal dower

Of pensive thought and aspect pale,
Your melancholy sweet and frail
As perfume of the cuckoo-flower?
From the westward-winding flood,
From the evening-lighted wood,

From all things outward you
A tearful grace, as tho' you stood

have won

Between the rainbow and the sun.
The very smile before you speak,
That dimples your transparent cheek,
Encircles all the heart, and feedeth
The senses with a still delight

Of dainty sorrow without sound,
Like the tender amber round,

Which the moon about her spreadeth,
Moving thro' a fleecy night.