Which now ye know,—and I shall meet you there,
Father, and gentle mother!-ye have bound
The bruised reed, and mercy shall be found
By Mercy's children."-From the matron's eye
Dropp'd tears, her sole and passionate reply;
But Edith felt them not; for now a sleep,
Solemnly beautiful, a stillness deep,
Fell on her settled face. Then, sad and slow,
And mantling up his stately head in woe,
"Thou'rt passing hence," he sang, that warrior old, In sounds like those by plaintive waters roll'd.
"Thou'rt passing from the lake's green side,
And the hunter's hearth away;
For the time of flowers, for the summer's pride,
Daughter! thou canst not stay.
Thou'rt journeying to thy spirit's home,
Where the skies are ever clear;
The corn-month's golden hours will come,
But they shall not find thee here.
And we shall miss thy voice, my bird!
Under our whispering pine;
Music shall 'midst the leaves be heard,
But not a song like thine.
A breeze that roves o'er stream and hill,
Telling of winter gone,
Hath such sweet falls-yet caught we still
A farewell in its tone.
But thou, my bright one! thou shalt be
Where farewell sounds are o'er;
Thou, in the eyes thou lov'st, shalt see
No fear of parting more.
The mossy grave thy tears have wet,
And the wind's wild moanings by,
Thou with thy kindred shalt forget,
'Midst flowers-not such as die.
The shadow from thy brow shall melt,
The sorrow from thy strain,
But where thine earthly smile hath dwelt,
Our hearts shall thirst in vain.
Dim will our cabin be, and lone,
When thou, its light, art fled;
Yet hath thy step the pathway shown
Unto the happy dead.
And we will follow thee, our guide!
And join that shining band;
Thou'rt passing from the lake's green side
Go to the better land!"
The song had ceased-the listeners caught no breath, That lovely sleep had melted into death.
What deep wounds ever closed without a scar?
The heart's bleed longest, and but heal to wear
That which disfigures it.
ROYAL in splendour went down the day
On the plain where an Indian city lay,
With its crown of domes o'er the forest high,
Red as if fused in the burning sky,
And its deep groves pierced by the rays which made
A bright stream's way through each long arcade,
Till the pillar'd vaults of the Banian stood,
Like torch-lit aisles 'midst the solemn wood,
And the plantain glitter'd with leaves of gold,
As a tree 'midst the genii-gardens old,
And the cypress lifted a blazing spire,
And the stems of the cocoas were shafts of fire.
Many a white pagoda's gleam
Slept lovely round upon lake and stream,
Broken alone by the lotus-flowers,
As they caught the glow of the sun's last hours,
Like rosy wine in their cups, and shed
Its glory forth on their crystal bed.
Many a graceful Hindoo maid,
With the water-vase from the palmy shade,
1 From a tale in Forbes' Oriental Memoirs.
Came gliding light as the desert's roe,
Down marble steps to the tanks below;
And a cool sweet plashing was ever heard,
As the molten glass of the wave was stirr'd;
And a murmur, thrilling the scented air,
Told where the Bramin bow'd in prayer.
There wander'd a noble Moslem boy
Through the scene of beauty in breathless joy;
He gazed where the stately city rose
Like a pageant of clouds in its red repose;
He turn'd where birds through the gorgeous gloom
Of the woods went glancing on starry plume;
He track'd the brink of the shining lake,
By the tall canes feather'd in tuft and brake,
Till the path he chose, in its mazes wound
To the very heart of the holy ground.
And there lay the water, as if enshrined
In a rocky urn from the sun and wind,
Bearing the hues of the grove on high,
Far down through its dark still purity.
The flood beyond, to the fiery west
Spread out like a metal-mirror's breast,
But that lone bay, in its dimness deep,
Seem'd made for the swimmer's joyful leap,
For the stag athirst from the noontide chase,
For all free things of the wild-wood's race.
Like a falcon's glance on the wide blue sky,
Was the kindling flash of the boy's glad eye.
Like a sea-bird's flight to the foaming wave,
From the shadowy bank was the bound he gave;
Dashing the spray-drops, cold and white,
O'er the glossy leaves, in his young delight,
And bowing his locks to the waters clear-
Alas! he dreamt not that fate was near.
His mother look'd from her tent the while,
O'er heaven and earth, with a quiet smile:
She, on her way unto Mecca's fàne,
Had stay'd the march of her pilgrim-train,
Calmly to linger a few brief hours,
In the Bramin city's glorious bowers;
For the pomp of the forest, the wave's bright fall, The red gold of sunset-she loved them all.
The moon rose clear in the splendour given
To the deep-blue night of an Indian heaven;
The boy from the high-arch'd woods came back—
Oh! what had he met in his lonely track?
The serpent's glance, thro' the long reeds bright ?
The arrowy spring of the tiger's might?
No! yet as one by a conflict worn,
With his graceful hair all soil'd and torn,
And a gloom on the lids of his darken'd eye,
And a gash on his bosom he came to die!
He look'd for the face to his young heart sweet,
And found it, and sank at his mother's feet.
"Speak to me!-whence doth the swift blood run?
What hath befall'n thee, my child, my son?"
The mist of death on his brow lay pale,
But his voice just linger'd to breathe the tale,
Murmuring faintly of wrongs and scorn,
And wounds from the children of Brahma borne:
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