FAIR Lady! as though friendship's chain seem broken,
It holds, with wonted force, this faithful heart,
I fain reserve's delusive veil would part,
And learn if haply yet some lingering token
Of old regard and tenderness supprest
Remaineth lurking in thy gentle breast.
Fate with no heavier blow nor keener sting
May crush or goad us, when the genial power
Of friendship fails and trifles of an hour
Rend each dear link that from our early spring,
Held us in pleasant thrall. The cup of life
Bears nought so bitter as the drops of strife!
Alas! I may not meet thee in the crowd
Unmoved-for in thy sweet familiar face,
The hallowed past hath left a startling trace :-
At once, with sudden impulse, fond and proud,
My bosom heaves-unconsciously my feet
Approach thee, and my lips thy name repeat !
But oh! the deadly pang, the freezing chill,
When by the calm gaze of that altered eye
The spell is broken! Lady, if the sigh
That meets thine ear could say what feelings thrill
This troubled heart, or what my sad looks meant,
Methinks e'en thy stern coldness might relent.
I cannot think that all our mutual dreams
Were false as twilight shadows, nor believe
Thine heart could change, or words like thine deceive;
And still as travellers for the sun's bright beams
Up-gaze in hope, though clouds may lour awhile,
I wait and watch for thy returning smile.
AND can'st thou leave me thus ? Oh, say farewell!
E'en grant one gracious look before we part
For ever-and the troubled thoughts that swell
So fearfully in this o'erburthened heart
Shall own a momentary lull serene,
Like sun-soothed billows blustering storm's between.
Still this averted eye?—this silence cold-
This sullen cloud upon a brow so fair-
This lifeless langour of the hand I hold
Without its will--this spirit-freezing air,
Never before by frame so lovely worn-
This dumb rebuke-and this curved lip of scorn?
Alas! that eye and brow and lip and hand,
Late ministrant to Love's unclouded heaven,
Are lost to me. I may not now command
E'en the kind word to parting strangers given,
Nor one relenting look, although the last,
In this death-hour of all the tender past.
How frail is language when, as dark as death,
The panting heart its muffled woes would speak!
Sleep's night-mare struggle, or the bubbling breath
Of drowning mariner, is not more weak;
Or even thou soft pity's pang should'st learn
And cease to stand so statue-like and stern.
'Tis but a dream! It cannot be that thou
So tender once and true, so bright and warm,
Can'st bear a frozen heart, though on that brow
Stern Winter seem to reign. Alas! what charm
May break this dreadful trance-once more make known
That blue eye's liquid glow, that lip's love-tone?
Oh, sunshine of my day-my star of night!
Queen of my waking hours, and of my dreams.
The one pervading image !-if thy light
Pass from me now, as pass the solar beams
Down the flushed west on foreign brows to shine,
What were the darkness of the grave to mine?
Art silent still?-Oh dearest Lady, speak,
Nor mock me like the dead! If ever tone
Or look of mine hath roused that spirit meek,
Or turned a soft and loving heart to stone,
Forgive-forgive ;-I bow me to the dust,
And with repentant throes to mercy trust.
Lo! the dark cloud dissolves, and gracious rain
Falls gently from the dimmed cerulean eye!
I hear that soft melodious voice again,
More sweet than streamlet's laugh or zephyr's sigh,-
Oh, Love's divinest Priestess, never more
Try my heart's faith with such dread penance sore?
Air-The Meeting of the Waters.
IF I dream of the past, at fair Fancy's command,
Up-floats from the blue sea thy small sunny land!
O'er thy green hills, sweet Jersey, the fresh breezes blow,
But silent and warm is thy Vallée des Vaux !
There alone have I loitered 'mid blossoms of gold,
And forgot that the great world was crowded and cold,
Nor believed that a land of enchantment could show
A vale more divine than the Vallée des Vaux.
A few white little cots, calm as clouds in the sky,
Or as still sails at sea, when the light breezes die,
And a mill with its wheel in the brook's silver glow
Form thy hamlet of beauty, sweet Vallée des Vaux !
As that brook prattled by like an infant at play,
And each wave as it passed stole a moment away,
I thought how serenely a long life would flow,
By the sweet little brook in the Vallée des Vaux.
WANDERER through the wilds of air!
Freely as an angel fair
Thou dost leave the solid earth,
Man is bound to from his birth.
Scarce a cubit from the grass
Springs the foot of lightest lass—
Thou upon a cloud can'st leap,
And o'er broadest rivers sweep,
Climb up heaven's steepest height,
Fluttering, twinkling, in the light;
Soaring, singing; till, sweet bird,
Thou art neither seen nor heard,
Lost in azure fields afar
Like a distance-hidden star
That alone for angels bright
Breathes its music, sheds its light.
Warbler of the morning's mirth!
When the gray mists rise from earth,
And the round dews on each spray
Glitter in the golden ray,
And thy wild notes, sweet though high,
Fill the wide cerulean sky,
Is there human heart or brain
Can resist thy merry strain?
But not always soaring high,
Making man upturn his eye
Just to learn what shape of love,
Raineth music from above ;-
All the sunny cloudlets fair
Floating on the azure air,
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