Sandoval [alone]. O Henry! always striv'st thou to be great

By thine own act-yet art thou never great
But by the inspiration of great passion.
The whirl-blast comes, the desert-sands rise up
And shape themselves; from earth to heaven they
stand,

As though they were the pillars of a temple,
Built by Omnipotence in its own honor!
But the blast pauses, and their shaping spirit
Is fled; the mighty columns were but sand,
And lazy snakes trail o'er the level ruins!

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN, WHOM THE AUTHOR HAD KNOWN IN THE DAYS OF HER INNOCENCE.

MYRTLE-LEAF that, ill besped,
Pinest in the gladsome ray,
Soiled beneath the common tread,
Far from thy protecting spray!
When the partridge o'er the sheaf
Whirred along the yellow vale,
Sad I saw thee, heedless leaf!

Love the dalliance of the gale.
Lightly didst thou, foolish thing!

Heave and flutter to his sighs,
While the flatterer, on his wing,

Wooed and whispered thee to rise.

Gaily from thy mother-stalk

Wert thou danced and wafted high-
Soon on this unsheltered walk

Flung to fade, to rot, and die.

TO AN UNFORTUNATE WOMAN

AT THE THEATRE.

MAIDEN, that with sullen brow
Sitt'st behind those virgins gay,
Like a scorched and mildewed bough,
Leafless, 'mid the blooms of May!
Him who lured thee and forsook,
Oft I watched with angry gaze,
Fearful saw his pleading look,

Anxious heard his fervid phrase.
Soft the glances of the youth,

Soft his speech, and soft his sigh;
But no sound like simple truth,
But no true love in his eye.
Loathing thy polluted lot,

Hie thee, Maiden, hie thee hence!
Seek thy weeping Mother's cot,

With a wiser innocence.

Thou hast known deceit and folly,
Thou hast felt that vice is woe:
With a musing melancholy,

Inly armed, go, Maiden! go.
Mother sage of self-dominion,

Firm thy steps, O Melancholy! The strongest plume in wisdom's pinion Is the memory of past folly. Mute the sky-lark and forlorn,

While she moults the firstling plumes, That had skimmed the tender corn,

Or the beanfield's odorous blooms.

Soon with renovated wing

Shall she dare a loftier flight,
Upward to the day-star spring,
And embathe in heavenly light.

LINES COMPOSED IN A CONCERT-ROOM.

NOR
OR cold, nor stern, my soul! yet I detest
These scented rooms, where, to a gaudy

throng,

Heaves the proud harlot her distended breast
In intricacies of laborious song.

These feel not Music's genuine power, nor deign
To melt at Nature's passion-warbled plaint;
But when the long-breathed singer's uptrilled strain
Bursts in a squall-they gape for wonderment.

Hark! the deep buzz of vanity and hate!

Scornful, yet envious, with self-torturing sneer My lady eyes some maid of humbler state,

While the pert captain, or the primmer priest,
Prattles accordant scandal in her ear.

O give me, from this heartless scene released,
To hear our old musician, blind and grey
(Whom stretching from my nurse's arms I kissed),
His Scottish tunes and warlike marches play,
By moonshine, on the balmy summer-night,
The while I dance amid the tedded hay
With merry maids, whose ringlets toss in light.

Or lies the purple evening on the bay
Of the calm glassy lake, O let me hide

Unheard, unseen, behind the alder-trees,

For round their roots the fisher's boat is tied,
On whose trim seat doth Edmund stretch at ease,
And while the lazy boat sways to and fro,

Breathes in his flute sad airs, so wild and slow, That his own cheek is wet with quiet tears.

But O, dear Anne! when midnight wind careers, And the gust pelting on the out-house shed

Makes the cock shrilly on the rain storm crow, To hear thee sing some ballad full of woe, Ballad of ship-wrecked sailor floating dead,

Whom his own true-love buried in the sands! Thee, gentle woman, for thy voice re-measures Whatever tones and melancholy pleasures

The things of Nature utter; birds or trees Or moan of ocean-gale in weedy caves, Or where the stiff grass mid the heath-plant waves, Murmur and music thin of sudden breeze.

THE KEEPSAKE.

THE
'HE tedded hay, the first fruits of the soil,
The tedded hay and corn-sheaves in one field,
Show summer gone, ere come. The foxglove tall
Sheds its loose purple bells, or in the gust,
Or when it bends beneath the up-springing lark,
Or mountain-finch alighting. And the rose
(In vain the darling of successful love)
Stands, like some boasted beauty of past years,
The thorns remaining, and the flowers all gone.
Nor can I find, amid my lonely walk

By rivulet, or spring, or wet road-side,
That blue and bright-eyed floweret of the brook,

Hope's gentle gem, the sweet Forget-me-not!*
So will not fade the flowers which Emmeline
With delicate fingers on the snow-white silk
Has worked (the flowers which most she knew I
loved),

And, more beloved than they, her auburn hair.

In the cool morning twilight, early waked By her full bosom's joyous restlessness, Softly she rose, and lightly stole along, Down the slope coppice to the woodbine bower, Whose rich flowers, swinging in the morning breeze, Over their dim fast-moving shadows hung, Making a quiet image of disquiet

In the smooth, scarcely moving river-pool.

There, in that bower where first she owned her love,
And let me kiss my own warm tear of joy
From off her glowing cheek, she sate and stretch'd
The silk upon the frame, and worked her name
Between the Moss-Rose and Forget-me-not-
Her own dear name, with her own auburn-hair!
That forced to wander till sweet spring return,
I yet might ne'er forget her smile, her look,
Her voice (that even in her mirthful mood
Has made me wish to steal away and weep),
Nor yet the entrancement of that maiden kiss
With which she promised, that when spring returned,
She would resign one half of that dear name,
And own henceforth no other name but mine.

* One of the names (and meriting to be the only one) of the Myosotis Scorpioides Palustris, a flower from six to twelve inches high, with blue blossom and bright yellow eye. It has the same name over the whole empire of Germany (Vergissmein nicht), and I believe, in Denmark and Sweden.