Herbert broke our engagement of eight years
    When Annabelle returned to the village From the
    Seminary, ah me!
    If I had let my love for him alone
    It might have grown into a beautiful sorrow -
    Who knows? - filling my life with healing fragrance.
    But I tortured it, I poisoned it
    I blinded its eyes, and it became hatred -
    Deadly ivy instead of clematis.
    And my soul fell from its support
    Its tendrils tangled in decay.
    Do not let the will play gardener to your soul
    Unless you are sure
    It is wiser than your soul's nature.

Gay was the Maid of Ocram
As lady eer might be
Ere she did venture past a maid
To love Lord Gregory.
Fair was the Maid of Ocram
And shining like the sun
Ere her bower key was turned on two
Where bride bed lay for none.

And late at night she sought her love--
The snow slept on her skin--
Get up, she cried, thou false young man,
And let thy true love in.
And fain would he have loosed the key
All for his true love's sake,
But Lord Gregory then was fast asleep,
His mother wide awake.

And up she threw the window sash,
And out her head put she:
And who is that which knocks so late
And taunts so loud to me?
It is the Maid of Ocram,
Your own heart's next akin;
For so you've sworn, Lord Gregory,
To come and let me in.

So all things come to our mind at last,
He is close by your side in the twilight gloom,
And you two are alone in the dim old room,
Yet he is mute, as you bade him be, time past.

You bade him to weary you, never again
With his idle love, in truth he was wise,
For he spake no more, although in his eyes
You read, you fancied, a language of pain.

But this is past, and vex you he never will,
With loving glance, or look of sad reproach;
His lips move not, smile not at your approach;
The flowers he clasps are not more calm and still.

Your favorite flowers he has heard you praise,
Purple pansies, and lilies creamy white;
But he offers them not to you to-night,
He troubles you not, he has learned "his place."

You wished to teach him that lesson,...

The clouds that promise a glorious morrow
    Are fading slowly, one by one;
The earth no more bright rays may borrow
    From her loved Lord, the golden sun;
Gray evening shadows are softly creeping,
    With noiseless steps, o'er vale and hill;
The birds and flowers are calmly sleeping;
    And all around is fair and still.

Once loved I dearly, at this sweet hour,
    With loitering steps to careless stray,
To idly gather an opening flower,
    And often pause upon my way, -
Gazing around me with joyous feeling,
    From sunny earth to azure sky,
Or bending over the streamlet, stealing
    'Mid banks of flowers and verdure by.

You wond'ring ask me why sit I lonely
    Within my quiet, curtain'd room,
So idly seeking and clinging only

Love-sick I am, and must endure
A desperate grief, that finds no cure.
Ah me! I try; and trying, prove
No herbs have power to cure love.
Only one sovereign salve I know,
And that is death, the end of woe.

I think no father under any sky
More fondly loved a daughter than did I,
And scarcely ever has a child been born
Whose loss her parents could more justly mourn.
Unspoiled and neat, obedient at all times,
She seemed already versed in songs and rhymes,
And with a highborn courtesy and art,
Though but a babe, she played a maiden's part.
Discreet and modest, sociable and free
From jealous habits, docile, mannerly,
She never thought to taste her morning fare
Until she should have said her morning prayer;
She never went to sleep at night until
She had prayed God to save us all from ill.
She used to run to meet her father when
He came from any journey home again;
She loved to work and to anticipate
The servants of the house ere they could wait
Upon her pare...

When our bosoms were lightest,
And day-dreams were brightest,
The gay vision melted away;
By sorrow 'twas shaded,
Too quickly it faded;
How transient its halcyon sway!

From my heart would you sever,
(Harsh fate!) and forever,
The friends who to life gave a charm,
What oblivion effaces
Fond mem'ry retraces,
And pictures each well-beloved form.

Some accent well known,
Some melodious tone,
Through my bosom like witchery shed,
Shall awake the sad sigh,
To the hours gone by,
And the friends, like a fairy dream, fled.

Long remembrance shall treasure
Those moments of pleasure,
When time flew unheeded away;
Joy's light skiff was near us,
Hope ventured to steer us,
And brighten our path with her ray.

We sa...

Motto.

On peut trouver des femmes qui n'ont jamais eu de galanterie, mais il est rare d'en trouver qui n'en aient jamais eu qu'une. - [Réflexions ... du Duc de la Rochefoucauld, No. lxxiii.]

1.

Lady! in whose heroic port
And Beauty, Victor even of Time,
And haughty lineaments, appear
Much that is awful, more that's dear -
Wherever human hearts resort
There must have been for thee a Court,
And Thou by acclamation Queen,
Where never Sovereign yet had been.
That eye so soft, and yet severe,
Perchance might look on Love as Crime;
And yet - regarding thee more near -
The traces of an unshed tear
Compressed back to the heart,
And mellowed Sadness in thine air,
Which shows that Love hath once been there,
To those who w...

Why should we weep or mourn, Angelic boy,
For such thou wert ere from our sight removed,
Holy, and ever dutiful beloved
From day to day with never-ceasing joy,
And hopes as dear as could the heart employ
In aught to earth pertaining? Death has proved
His might, nor less his mercy, as behoved,
Death conscious that he only could destroy
The bodily frame. That beauty is laid low
To moulder in a far-off field of Rome;
But Heaven is now, blest Child, thy Spirit's home:
When such divine communion, which we know,
Is felt, thy Roman-burial place will be
Surely a sweet remembrancer of Thee.

O Earth, lie heavily upon her eyes;
    Seal her sweet eyes weary of watching, Earth;
    Lie close around her; leave no room for mirth
With its harsh laughter, nor for sound of sighs.
She hath no questions, she hath no replies,
    Hushed in and curtained with a blessèd dearth
    Of all that irked her from the hour of birth;
With stillness that is almost Paradise.
Darkness more clear than noon-day holdeth her,
    Silence more musical than any song;
Even her very heart has ceased to stir:
Until the morning of Eternity
Her rest shall not begin nor end, but be;
    And when she wakes she will not think it long.

Like the south-flying swallow the summer has flown,
Like a fast-falling star, from unknown to unknown
Life flashes and falters and fails from our sight,
Good-night, friends, good-night.

Like home-coming swallows that seek the old eaves,
Like the buds that wait patient beneath the dead leaves,
Love shall sleep in our hearts till our hands meet again,
Till then, friends, till then!

I was thy neighbour once, thou rugged Pile!
Four summer weeks I dwelt in sight of thee:
I saw thee every day; and all the while
Thy Form was sleeping on a glassy sea.

So pure the sky, so quiet was the air!
So like, so very like, was day to day!
Whene’er I looked, thy Image still was there;
It trembled, but it never passed away.

How perfect was the calm! it seemed no sleep;
No mood, which season takes away, or brings:
I could have fancied that the mighty Deep
Was even the gentlest of all gentle things.

Ah! then , if mine had been the Painter’s hand,
To express what then I saw; and add the gleam,
The light that never was, on sea or land,
The consecration, and the Poet’s dream;

I would have planted thee, thou hoary Pile
Amid a world h...

H. W. L.

Pride of the sister realm so long our own,
We claim with her that spotless fame of thine,
White as her snow and fragrant as her pine!
Ours was thy birthplace, but in every zone
Some wreath of song thy liberal hand has thrown
Breathes perfume from its blossoms, that entwine
Where'er the dewdrops fall, the sunbeams shine,
On life's long path with tangled cares o'ergrown.
Can Art thy truthful counterfeit command, -
The silver-haloed features, tranquil, mild, -
Soften the lips of bronze as when they smiled,
Give warmth and pressure to the marble hand?
Seek the lost rainbow in the sky it spanned
Farewell, sweet Singer! Heaven reclaims its child.

Carved from the block or cast in clinging mould,
Will grateful Memory fondly try her best
The m...

I am the tender voice calling 'Away,'
Whispering between the beatings of the heart,
And inaccessible in dewy eyes
I dwell, and all unkissed on lovely lips,
Lingering between white breasts inviolate,
And fleeting ever from the passionate touch,
I shine afar, till men may not divine
Whether it is the stars or the beloved
They follow with wrapt spirit. And I weave
My spells at evening, folding with dim caress,
Aerial arms and twilight dropping hair,
The lonely wanderer by wood or shore,
Till, filled with some deep tenderness, he yields,
Feeling in dreams for the dear mother heart
He knew, ere he forsook the starry way,
And clings there, pillowed far above the smoke
And the dim murmur from the duns of men.
I can enchant the trees and rocks, and fill
The ...

From Mirth's bright circle, from the giddy throng,
How sweet it is to steal away at eve,
To listen to the homeward fisher's song,
Whilst dark the waters of the ocean heave; -

And on the sloping beach to bear the spray
Dash 'gainst some hoary vessel's broken side;
Whilst, far illumin'd by the parting ray,
The distant sail is faintly seen to glide.

Yes, 'tis Reflection's chosen hour; for then,
With pensive pleasure mingling o'er the scene,
Th' erratic mind treads over life again,
And gazes on the past with eye serene.

Those stormy passions which bedimm'd the soul,
That oft have bid the joys it treasur'd fly,
Now, like th' unruffled waves of Ocean, roll
With gentle lapse - their only sound a sigh.

The galling wrong no longer knits the brow...

To-day I had a burial of my dead.
    There was no shroud, no coffin, and no pall,
No prayers were uttered and no tears were shed -
    I only turned a picture to the wall.

A picture that had hung within my room
    For years and years; a relic of my youth.
It kept the rose of love in constant bloom
    To see those eyes of earnestness and truth.

At hours wherein no other dared intrude,
    I had drawn comfort from its smiling grace.
Silent companion of my solitude,
    My soul held sweet communion with that face.

I lived again the dream so bright, so brief,
    Though wakened as we all are by some Fate;
This picture gave me infinite relief,
    And did not leave me wholly desolate.

To-day I saw an item, quite by chance,
    That r...

Farewell to one now silenced quite,
Sent out of hearing, out of sight,--
    My friend of friends, whom I shall miss.
    He is not banished, though, for this,--
Nor he, nor sadness, nor delight.

Though I shall walk with him no more,
A low voice sounds upon the shore.
    He must not watch my resting-place
    But who shall drive a mournful face
From the sad winds about my door?

I shall not hear his voice complain,
But who shall stop the patient rain?
    His tears must not disturb my heart,
    But who shall change the years, and part
The world from every thought of pain?

Although my life is left so dim,
The morning crowns the mountain-rim;
    Joy is not gone from summer skies,
    Nor innocence from children's eyes,
And all ...

In the gruesome night and the wintry weather,
    I watched two dear friends die,
And I buried them both in one grave together.
    Oh! who is so sad as I?
For the old love, and the old year,
    They both have passed away;
And I never can find the old cheer
    Come what will or may.

I heard the bell in the tall church steeple
    Clang out a joyful strain.
And I thought, 'Of all the great world's people,
    I have the bitterest pain.'
For the old year was a good year,
    And the old love was sweet;
And how could my heart hold any cheer
    When both lay dead at my feet.

Life may smile and the skies may brighten,
    Winter will pass with its snows;
Grief will wane and the burden lighten -
    And June will come with the rose.