Scene I. A peak of the Alps. Werner alone. Time, morning.

Werner.

    How gloriously beautiful is earth!
In these her quiet, unfrequented haunts,
To which, except the timid chamois' foot,
Or venturous hunter's, or the eagle's wing,
Naught from beneath ascends. As yet the sun
But darts his earliest rays of golden light
Upon the summits of the tallest peaks,
Which robed in clouds and capped with glittering ice,
Soar proudly up, and beam and blaze aloft,
As if they would claim kindred with the stars!
And they may claim such kindred, for there is
Within, around, and over them, the same
Supreme, eternal, all-creating spirit
Which glows and burns in every beaming orb
That circles in immeasurable space!
    Far as the eye can trace the mountain's cre...

(A. S.) 1845.


We met--he was a stranger,
    His foot was free to roam;
I was a simple maiden,
    Who had never left my home.

He was a noble scion
    Of the green Highland pine,
To a strange soil transplanted,
    Far from his native clime

And well his bearing pleased me,
    For I had never seen
Keener eye, or smile more sunlit,
    Or more dignity of mien.

His brow was fair and lofty,
    Bright was his clustering hair;
I marvelled that to other eyes
    He seemed not half so fair

His it was to plead with men,
    With "Thus my Lord hath said;"
He stood God's messenger between
    The living and the dead

When I heard how earnestly
    His pleading message ran,
I said, "Here God ha...

Sitting alone by the window,
    Watching the moonlit street,
Bending my head to listen
    To the well-known sound of your feet,
I have been wondering, darling,
    How I can bear the pain,
When I watch, with sighs and tear-wet eyes,
    And wait for your coming in vain.

For I know that a day approaches
    When your heart will tire of me;
When by door and gate I may watch and wait
    For a form I shall not see;
When the love that is now my heaven,
    The kisses that make my life,
You will bestow on another,
    And that other will be - your wife.

You will grow weary of sinning
    (Though you do not call it so),
You will long for a love that is purer
    Than the love that we two know.
God knows I have loved you dearly,

My beauty lives in a cottage grey by a gentle river's mouth,
A cottage grey by the lone sea-shore away in the sunny south,
Her eye's as fair, oh fairer, than the moonlight o'er the sea,
And I love to look in my darling's face as she sits and sings to me.

I'm as happy as a monarch as she lingers at my side,
As we watch the far horizon of the ever-tossing tide,
While the cool refreshing zephyr bears her tresses in its train,
Now starting into motion and now slumbering again.

She trips beside the waters on the distant yellow sand
While holy vespers steal across the ocean and the land,
And the sea bears the reflection of the worlds that roll above
And every breath of even seems to whisper but of love.

Oh what to me is Glory, what is Power, what is Pride!
I care...

    At times thy image to my mind returns,
    Aspasia. In the crowded streets it gleams
    Upon me, for an instant, as I pass,
    In other faces; or in lonely fields,
    At noon-tide bright, beneath the silent stars,
    With sudden and with startling vividness,
    As if awakened by sweet harmony,
    The splendid vision rises in my soul.
    How worshipped once, ye gods, what a delight
    To me, what torture, too! Nor do I e'er
    The odor of the flowery fields inhale,
    Or perfume of the gardens of the town,
    That I recall thee not, as on that day,
    When in thy sumptuous rooms, so redolent
    Of all the fragrant flowers of the spring,
    Arrayed in robe of violet hue, thy form
    Angelic I beheld, as it reclined
    On dainty cushions ...

My dear wife sits beside the fire
    With folded hands and dreaming eyes,
Watching the restless flames aspire,
    And rapt in thralling memories.
I mark the fitful firelight fling
    Its warm caresses on her brow,
    And kiss her hands' unmelting snow,
And glisten on her wedding-ring.

The proud free head that crowns so well
    The neck superb, whose outlines glide
Into the bosom's perfect swell
    Soft-billowed by its peaceful tide,
The cheek's faint flush, the lip's red glow,
    The gracious charm her beauty wears,
    Fill my fond eyes with tender tears
As in the days of long ago.

Days long ago, when in her eyes
    The only heaven I cared for lay,
When from our thoughtless Paradise
    All care and toil dwelt far away;

Has then, the Paphian Queen at length prevail'd?
Has the sly little Archer, whom my Friend
Once would despise, with all his boyish wiles,
Now taken ample vengeance, made thee feel
His piercing shaft, and taught thy heart profane
With sacred awe, repentant, to confess
The Son of Venus is indeed a God?
I greet his triumph; for he has but claim'd
His own; the breast that was by Nature form'd
And destined for his temple Love has claim'd.

The great, creating Parent, when she breathed
Into thine earthly frame the breath of life,
Indulgently conferr'd on thee a soul
Of finer essence, capable to trace,
To feel, admire, and love, the fair, the good,
Wherever found, through all her various works.
And is not Woman, then, her fairest work,
Fairest, and oft her ...

Dost thou idly ask to hear
At what gentle seasons
Nymphs relent, when lovers near
Press the tenderest reasons?
Ah, they give their faith too oft
To the careless wooer;
Maidens' hearts are always soft:
Would that men's were truer!

Woo the fair one, when around
Early birds are singing;
When, o'er all the fragrant ground.
Early herbs are springing:
When the brookside, bank, and grove,
All with blossoms laden,
Shine with beauty, breathe of love,
Woo the timid maiden.

Woo her when, with rosy blush,
Summer eve is sinking;
When, on rills that softly gush,
Stars are softly winking;
When, through boughs that knit the bower,
Moonlight gleams are stealing;
Woo her, till the gentle hour
Wake a gentler feeling.

Woo ...

By sound of name, and touch of hand,
Thro' ears that hear, and eyes that see,
We know each other in this land,
How little must that knowledge be?

How souls are all the time alone,
No spirit can another reach;
They hide away in realms unknown,
Like waves that never touch a beach.

We never know each other here,
No soul can here another see --
To know, we need a light as clear
As that which fills eternity.

For here we walk by human light,
But there the light of God is ours,
Each day, on earth, is but a night;
Heaven alone hath clear-faced hours.

I call you thus -- you call me thus --
Our mortal is the very bar
That parts forever each of us,
As skies, on high, part star from star.

A name is nothing but a name
...

All thoughts, all passions, all delights,
Whatever stirs this mortal frame,
Are all but ministers of Love,
And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,
When midway on the mount I lay
Beside the ruined tower.

The moonshine stealing o'er the scene
Had blended with the lights of eve;
And she was there, my hope, my joy,
My own dear Genevieve!

She leant against the armed man,
The statue of the armed knight;
She stood and listened to my lay,
Amid the lingering light.

Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope! my joy! my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story -
An ...

Our souls should be vessels receiving
The waters of love for relieving
    The sorrows of men.

For here lies the pleasure of living:
In taking God's bounties, and giving
    The gifts back again.

Heaped in raven loops and masses
Over temples smooth and fair,
Have you marked it, as she passes,
Gleam and shadow mingled there,
Braided strands of midnight air,
Helen's hair?

Deep with dreams and starry mazes
Of the thought that in them lies,
Have you seen them, as she raises
Them in gladness or surprise,
Two gray gleams of daybreak skies,
Helen's eyes?

Moist with dew and honied wafters
Of a music sweet that slips,
Have you marked them, brimmed with laughter's
Song and sunshine to their tips,
Rose-buds whence the fragrance drips,
Helen's lips?

He who sees her needs must love her:
But, beware! avoid love's dart!
He who loves her must discover
Nature overlooked one part,
In this masterpiece of art
Helen's he...

Upon a day, a merry day,
When summer in her best,
Like Sunday belles, prepares for play,
And joins each merry guest,
A maid, as wild as is a bird
That never knew a cage,
Went out her parents' kine to herd,
And Jocky, as her page,

Must needs go join her merry toils;

A silly shepherd he,
And little thought the aching broils
That in his heart would be;
For he as yet knew nought of love,
And nought of love knew she;
Yet without learning love can move
The wildest to agree.

The wind, enamoured of the maid,
Around her drapery swims,
And moulds in luscious masquerade
Her lovely shape and limbs.
Smith's "Venus stealing Cupid's bow"
In marble hides as fine;
But hers were life and soul, whose glow
Makes meaner things d...

i.

I tell thee Sweet! there lives not on the earth
    A love like mine in all the height and girth
And all the vast completion of the sphere.
I should be proud, to-day, to shed a tear
If I could weep. But tears are most denied
When most besought; and joys are sanctified
    By joys' undoing in this world of ours
From dusk to dawn and dawn to eventide.


ii.

Wert thou a marble maid and I endow'd
    With power to move thee from thy seeming shroud
Of frozen splendour,--all thy whiteness mine
And all the glamour, all the tender shine
Of thy glad eyes,--ah God! if this were so,
And I the loosener, in the summer-glow,
    Of thy long tresses! I were licensed then
To gaze, unchidden, on thy limbs of snow.


iii.

...

As loving hind that (hartless) wants her deer,
Scuds through the woods and fern with hark'ning ear,
Perplext, in every bush and nook doth pry,
Her dearest deer, might answer ear or eye;
So doth my anxious soul, which now doth miss
A dearer dear (far dearer heart) than this.
Still wait with doubts, and hopes, and failing eye,
His voice to hear or person to descry.
Or as the pensive dove doth all alone
(On withered bough) most uncouthly bemoan
The absence of her love and loving mate,
Whose loss hath made her so unfortunate,
Ev'n thus do I, with many a deep sad groan,
Bewail my turtle true, who now is gone,
His presence and his safe return still woos,
With thousand doleful sighs and mournful coos.
Or as the loving mullet, that true fish,
Her fellow lost, nor...

Tho' unknown is the hand that bestow'd thee on me,
Sweet leaf! ev'ry fibre I'll warm with a kiss:
With the fame of her beauty thou well dost agree,
Whose presence shews conquest, whose triumph is bliss!

Oh, the world is all too rude for thee, with much ado and care;
Oh, this world is but a rude world, and hurts a thing so fair;
Was there a nook in which the world had never been to sear,
That place would prove a paradise when thou and Love were near.

And there to pluck the blackberry, and there to reach the sloe,
How joyously and happily would Love thy partner go;
Then rest when weary on a bank, where not a grassy blade
Had eer been bent by Trouble's feet, and Love thy pillow made.

For Summer would be ever green, though sloes were in their prime,
And Winter smile his frowns to Spring, in beauty's happy clime;
And months would come, and months would go, and all in sunny mood,
And everything inspired by thee grow beautifully good.

And there to make a cot unknown t...

If days should pass without a written word
    To tell me of thy welfare, and if days
    Should lengthen out to weeks, until the maze
Of questioning fears confused me, and I heard.
    Life-sounds as echoes; and one came and said
    After these weeks of waiting: "He is dead!"

Though the quick sword had found the vital part,
    And the life-blood must mingle with the tears,
    I think that, as the dying soldier hears
The cries of victory, and feels his heart
    Surge with his country's triumph-hour, I could
    Hope bravely on, and feel that God was good.

I could take up my thread of life again
    And weave my pattern though the colors were
    Faded forever. Though I might not dare
Dream often of thee, I should know that when
    Death came t...