Forgotten?-not of all! The sunny smile Glancing in play o'er that proud lip erewhile, And the dark locks, whose breezy waving threw A gladness round, whene'er their shade withdrew From the bright brow; and all the sweetness lying Within that eagle eye's jet radiance deep, And all the music with that young voice dying, Whose joyous echoes made the quick heart leap As at a hunter's bugle-these things lived Still in one breast, whose silent love survived The pomps of kindred sorrow. Day by day, On Aymer's tomb fresh flowers in garlands lay, Through the dim fane soft summer odours breathing, And all the pale sepulchral trophies wreathing, And with a flush of deeper brilliance glowing In the rich light, like molten rubies flowing Through storied windows down. The violet there Might speak of love-a secret love and lowly; And the rose image all things fleet and fair; And the faint passion-flower, the sad and holy, Tell of diviner hopes. But whose light hand, As for an altar, wove the radiant band? Whose gentle nurture brought, from hidden dells, That gem-like wealth of blossoms and sweet bells, To blush through every season? Blight and chill Might touch the changing woods; but duly still For years those gorgeous coronals, renewed, And brightly clasping marble spear and helm, Even through mid-winter filled the solitude With a strange smile-a glow of summer's realm. Surely some fond and fervent heart was pouring Its youth's vain worship on the dust, adoring In lone devotedness!

THE PEASANT GIRL OF THE RHONE

One spring morn rose,

And found, within that tomb's proud shadow laid— Oh! not as midst the vineyards, to repose

57

From the fierce noon-a dark-haired peasant maid.
Who could reveal her story? That still face
Had once been fair; for on the clear arched brow
And the curved lip, there lingered yet such grace
As sculpture gives its dreams; and long and low
The deep black lashes, o'er the half-shut eye—
For death was on its lids-fell mournfully.
But the cold cheek was sunk, the raven hair
Dimmed, the slight form all wasted, as by care.
Whence came that early blight? Her kindred's place
Was not amidst the high De Couci race;

Yet there her shrine had been! She grasped a wreath,
The tomb's last garland !-This was Love in Death.

INDIAN WOMAN'S DEATH-SONG

[AN Indian woman, driven to despair by her husband's desertion of her for another wife, entered a canoe with her children, and rowed it down the Mississippi towards a cataract. Her voice was heard from the shore singing a mournful death-song, until overpowered by the sound of the waters in which she perished. The tale is related in LONG'S Expedition to the Source of St Peter's River.]

"Non! je ne puis vivre avec un coeur brise. Il faut que je retrouve la joie, et que je m'unisse aux esprits libres de l'air."-BRIDE OF MESSINA.

"Let not my child be a girl, for very sad is the life of a woman."-THE PRAIRIE.

Down a broad river of the Western wilds,
Piercing thick forest-glooms, a light canoe
Swept with the current. Fearful was the speed
Of the frail bark, as by a tempest's wing
Borne leaf-like on to where the mist of spray
Rose with the cataract's thunder. Yet within,
Proudly and dauntlessly, and all alone,
Save that a babe lay sleeping at her breast,
A woman stood! Upon her Indian brow
Sat a strange gladness, and her dark hair waved
As if triumphantly. She pressed her child,
In its bright slumber, to her beating heart,
And lifted her sweet voice, that rose awhile
Above the sound of waters, high and clear,
Wafting a wild proud strain-a song of death.

!

INDIAN WOMAN'S DEATH-SONG

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"Roll swiftly to the Spirit's Land, thou mighty stream and free!

Father of ancient Waters,* roll! and bear our lives with thee !

The weary bird that storms have tossed would seek the sunshine's calm,

And the deer that hath the arrow's hurt flies to the woods of balm.

"Roll on !-my warrior's eye hath looked upon another's

face,

And mine hath faded from his soul, as fades a moonbeam's trace:

My shadow comes not o'er his path, my whisper to his dream

He flings away the broken reed. Roll swifter yet, thou stream!

"The voice that spoke of other days is hushed within his breast,

But mine its lonely music haunts, and will not let me

rest;

It sings a low and mournful song of gladness that is

gone

I cannot live without that light. Father of Waves! roll on !

"Will he not miss the bounding step that met him from the chase?

The heart of love that made his home an ever-sunny

place?

* "Father of Waters," the Indian name for the Mississippi.

The hand that spread the hunter's board, and decked his couch of yore?—

He will not! Roll, dark foaming stream! on to the better shore.

"Some blessed fount amidst the woods of that bright land must flow,

Whose waters from my soul may lave the memory of this woe;

Some gentle wind must whisper there, whose breath may waft away

The burden of the heavy night, the sadness of the

day.

"And thou, my babe! though born, like me, for woman's weary lot,

Smile !-to that wasting of the heart, my own! I leave thee not.

Too bright a thing art thou to pine in aching love

away

Thy mother bears thee far, young fawn! from sorrow and decay.

"She bears thee to the glorious bowers where none are heard to weep,

And where the unkind one hath no power again to trouble sleep;

And where the soul shall find its youth, as wakening from a dream:

One moment, and that realm is ours. On, on, darkrolling stream!"