Pauline, the meekly bright! though now no more
Her clear eye flashed with youth's all-tameless glee,
Yet something holier than its dayspring wore,
There in soft rest lay beautiful to see;

A charm with graver, tenderer, sweetness fraught-
The blending of deep love and matron thought.

Through the gay throng she moved, serenely fair,
And such calm joy as fills a moonlight sky
Sat on her brow beneath its graceful hair,
As her young daughter in the dance went by,
With the fleet step of one that yet hath known
Smiles and kind voices in this world alone.

Lurked there no secret boding in her breast?
Did no faint whisper warn of evil nigh?

Such oft awake when most the heart seems blest
Midst the light laughter of festivity.

Whence come those tones? Alas! enough we know
To mingle fear with all triumphal show!

Who spoke of evil when young feet were flying

In fairy rings around the echoing hall?

Soft airs through braided locks in perfume sighing,
Glad pulses beating unto music's call?

Silence the minstrels pause-and hark! a sound,
A strange quick rustling which their notes had drowned!

And lo, a light upon the dancers breaking!—
Not such their clear and silvery lamps had shed!
From the gay dream of revelry awaking,

One moment holds them still in breathless dread.
The wild fierce lustre grows: then bursts a cry—
"Fire!" through the hall and round it gathering-" Fly !”

PAULINE

And forth they rush, as chased by sword and spear,
To the green coverts of the garden bowers-

A gorgeous masque of pageantry and fear,
Startling the birds and trampling down the flowers :
While from the dome behind red sparkles driven
Pierce the dark stillness of the midnight heaven.

And where is she-Pauline? The hurrying throng
Have swept her onward, as a stormy blast
Might sweep some faint o'erwearied bird along-
Till now the threshold of that death is past,
And free she stands beneath the starry skies,
Calling her child--but no sweet voice replies.

67

"Bertha ! where art thou? Speak! oh! speak, my own!" Alas! unconscious of her pangs the while,

The gentle girl, in fear's cold grasp alone,
Powerless had sunk within the blazing pile;

A young bright form, decked gloriously for death,
With flowers all shrinking from the flame's fierce breath!

But oh thy strength, deep love! There is no power
To stay the mother from that rolling grave,
Though fast on high the fiery volumes tower,
And forth like banners from each lattice wave.
Back, back she rushes through a host combined—
Mighty is anguish, with affection twined!

And what bold step may follow, midst the roar
Of the red billows, o'er their prey that rise?
None!-Courage there stood still-and never more
Did those fair forms emerge on human eyes!
Was one bright meeting theirs, one wild farewell?
And died they heart to heart?-Oh! who can tell?

Freshly and cloudlessly the morning broke
On that sad palace, midst its pleasure-shades ;
Its painted roofs had sunk-yet black with smoke
And lonely stood its marble colonnades:

But yester eve their shafts with wreaths were bound,
Now lay the scene one shrivelled scroll around!

And bore the ruins no recording trace

Of all that woman's heart had dared and done?
Yes! there were gems to mark its mortal place,
That forth from dust and ashes dimly shone !
Those had the mother, on her gentle breast,
Worn round her child's fair image, there at rest.

And they were all !-the tender and the true
Left this alone her sacrifice to prove,
Hallowing the spot where mirth once lightly flew,
To deep lone chastened thoughts of grief and love.
Oh! we have need of patient faith below,
To clear away the mysteries of such woe!

JUANA

[JUANA, mother of the Emperor Charles V., upon the death of her husband, Philip the Handsome of Austria, who had treated her with uniform neglect, had his body laid upon a bed of state, in a magnificent dress; and being possessed with the idea that it would revive, watched it for a length of time, incessantly waiting for the moment of returning life.]

"It is but dust thou look'st upon. This love,

This wild and passionate idolatry,

What doth it in the shadow of the grave?

Gather it back within thy lonely heart.

So must it ever end: too much we give
Unto the things that perish."

THE night-wind shook the tapestry round an ancient palace room,

And torches, as it rose and fell, waved through the gorgeous gloom,

And o'er a shadowy regal couch threw fitful gleams and

red,

Where a woman with long raven hair sat watching by the dead.

Pale shone the features of the dead, yet glorious still

to see,

Like a hunter or a chief struck down while his heart and step were free:

No shroud he wore, no robe of death, but there majestic

lay,

Proudly and sadly glittering in royalty's array.

But she that with the dark hair watched by the cold slumberer's side,

On her wan cheek no beauty dwelt, and in her garb no pride;

Only her full impassioned eyes, as o'er that clay she

bent,

A wildness and a tenderness in strange resplendence

blent.

And as the swift thoughts crossed her soul, like shadows of a cloud,

Amidst the silent room of death the dreamer spoke

aloud;

She spoke to him that could not hear, and cried, "Thou yet wilt wake,

And learn my watchings and my tears, beloved one! for thy sake.

They told me this was death, but well I knew it could not be ;

Fairest and stateliest of the earth! who spoke of death for thee?

They would have wrapped the funeral shroud thy gallant form around,

But I forbade and there thou art, a monarch, robed and crowned!

With all thy bright locks gleaming still, their coronal beneath,

And thy brow so proudly beautiful-who said that this was death?

Silence hath been upon thy lips, and stillness round thee long,