How the sumac banners bent, dripping as if with blood,
What a mournful presence brooded upon the slumbrous air;
A mocking-bird screamed noisily in the depth of the silent wood,
And in my heart was crying the raven of despair,
Thrilling my being through with its bitter, bitter cry -
"It were better to die, it were better to die."

For she, my love, my fate, she sat by my side
On a fallen oak, her cheek all flushed with a bashful shame,
Telling me what her innocent heart had hid -
"For was not I her brother, her dear brother, all but in name."
I listened to her low words, but turned my face away -
Away from her eyes' soft light, and the mocking light of the day.

"He was noble and proud," she said, "and had chosen her from all
The haughty ladies, and great; she didn'...

With many a thousand kiss not yet content,

At length with One kiss I was forced to go;

After that bitter parting's depth of woe,
I deem'd the shore from which my steps I bent,

Its hills, streams, dwellings, mountains, as I went,

A pledge of joy, till daylight ceased to glow;

Then on my sight did blissful visions grow
In the dim-lighted, distant firmament,

And when at length the sea confined my gaze,

My ardent longing fill'd my heart once more;

What I had lost, unwillingly I sought.

Then Heaven appear'd to shed its kindly rays:

Methought that all I had possess'd of yore

Remain'd still mine that I was reft of nought.

Yes! The land we love
Is a land of pretty girls,
In grand variety;
With their many colored eyes
And their multi-colored curls,
They'll steal thy heart from thee.

If you travel in the North,
One will gleam in glory forth,
With her blue eyes, O, so blue!
And her flash of golden hair
Will be flirting in the air,
While entrancing all the soul in you.
Oho! My Boy! Oho!

Always for your weal and never for your woe,
Your little heart will gallop on the go,
And it will not give you rest
Within your manly breast,
Till you land yourself in toto at her toe.
Oho! My Boy! Oho!

If you travel in the South,
You will find a rosy mouth,
And a black eye, O so black!
And some strands of raven hair
Will purloin your heart just th...

In qual parte del cielo, in quale idea.

HE EXTOLS THE BEAUTY AND VIRTUE OF LAURA.


    Say from what part of heaven 'twas Nature drew,
From what idea, that so perfect mould
To form such features, bidding us behold,
In charms below, what she above could do?
What fountain-nymph, what dryad-maid e'er threw
Upon the wind such tresses of pure gold?
What heart such numerous virtues can unfold?
Although the chiefest all my fond hopes slew.
He for celestial charms may look in vain,
Who has not seen my fair one's radiant eyes,
And felt their glances pleasingly beguile.
How Love can heal his wounds, then wound again,
He only knows, who knows how sweet her sighs,
How sweet her converse, and how sweet her smile.

NOTT.


    In ...

If I, dearest Lily, did not love thee,

How this prospect would enchant my sight!
And yet if I, Lily, did not love thee,

Could I find, or here, or there, delight?

O, EVER DEAR! thy precious, vital powers
    Sink rapidly! - the long and dreary Night
    Brings scarce an hope that Morn's returning light
    Shall dawn for THEE! - In such terrific hours,
When yearning Fondness eagerly devours
    Each moment of protracted life, his flight
    The Rashly-Chosen of thy heart has ta'en
    Where dances, songs, and theatres invite.
EXPIRING SWEETNESS! with indignant pain
    I see him in the scenes where laughing glide
    Pleasure's light Forms; - see his eyes gaily glow,
Regardless of thy life's fast ebbing tide;
    I hear him, who shou'd droop in silent woe,
    Declaim on Actors, and on Taste decide!

AN OLD SWEETHEART.



As one who cons at evening o'er an album all alone,
And muses on the faces of the friends that he has known,
So I turn the leaves of fancy till, in shadowy design,
I find the smiling features of an old sweetheart of mine.

The lamplight seems to glimmer with a flicker of surprise,
As I turn it low to rest me of the dazzle in my eyes,
And light my pipe in silence, save a sigh that seems to yoke
Its fate with my tobacco and to vanish with the smoke.

'Tis a fragrant retrospection - for the loving thoughts that start
Into being are like perfumes from the blossom of the heart;
And to dream the old dreams over is a luxury divine -
When my truant fancy wanders with that old sweeheart of mine.

Though I hear, beneath my study, lik...

My heart is sad,

My peace is o'er;
I find it never

And nevermore.

When gone is he,
The grave I see;
The world's wide all
Is turned to gall.

Alas, my head

Is well-nigh crazed;
My feeble mind

Is sore amazed.

My heart is sad,

My peace is o'er;
I find it never

And nevermore.

For him from the window

Alone I spy;
For him alone

From home go I.

His lofty step,

His noble form,
His mouth's sweet smile,

His glances warm,

His voice so fraught

With magic bliss,
His hand's soft pressure,

And, ah, his kiss!

My heart is sad,

My peace is o'er;
I find it never

And nevermore.
...

Never give all the heart, for love
Will hardly seem worth thinking of
To passionate women if it seem
Certain, and they never dream
That it fades out from kiss to kiss;
For everything that's lovely is
But a brief, dreamy, kind delight.
O never give the heart outright,
For they, for all smooth lips can say,
Have given their hearts up to the play.
And who could play it well enough
If deaf and dumb and blind with love?
He that made this knows all the cost,
For he gave all his heart and lost.

An old sweetheart of mine! - Is this her presence here with me,
Or but a vain creation of a lover's memory?
A fair, illusive vision that would vanish into air
Dared I even touch the silence with the whisper of a prayer?

Nay, let me then believe in all the blended false and true -
The semblance of the OLD love and the substance of the NEW, -
The THEN of changeless sunny days - the NOW of shower and shine -
But Love forever smiling - as that old sweetheart of mine.

This ever-restful sense of HOME, though shouts ring in the hall. -
The easy chair - the old book-shelves and prints along the wall;
The rare HABANAS in their box, or gaunt church-warden-stem
That often wags, above the jar, derisively at them.

As one who cons at evening o'er an album, all alone,
And...

Julia, I bring
To thee this Ring.
Made for thy finger fit;
To shew by this,
That our love is
(Or sho'd be) like to it.

Close though it be,
The joynt is free:
So when Love's yoke is on,
It must not gall,
Or fret at all
With hard oppression.

But it must play
Still either way;
And be, too, such a yoke,
As not too wide,
To over-slide;
Or be so strait to choak.

So we, who beare,
The beame, must reare
Our selves to such a height:
As that the stay
Of either may
Create the burden light.

And as this round
Is no where found
To flaw, or else to sever:
So let our love
As endless prove;
And pure as Gold for ever.

"She has beauty, but still you must keep your heart cool;
    "She has wit, but you mustn't be caught, so;"
Thus Reason advises, but Reason's a fool,
    And 'tis not the first time I have thought so,
        Dear Fanny.
    'Tis not the first time I have thought so.

"She is lovely; then love her, nor let the bliss fly;
    "'Tis the charm of youth's vanishing season;"
Thus Love has advised me and who will deny
    That Love reasons much better than Reason,
        Dear Fanny?
    Love reasons much better than Reason.

She's gone, and twice the summer's sun
Has gilt Regina's towers,
And melted wild Angora's snows,
And warmed Exina's bowers.

The flowerets twice on hill and dale
Have bloomed and died away,
And twice the rustling forest leaves
Have fallen to decay,

And thrice stern winter's icy hand
Has checked the river's flow,
And three times o'er the mountains thrown
His spotless robe of snow.

Two summers springs and autumns sad
Three winters cold and grey,
And is it then so long ago
That wild November day!

They say such tears as children weep
Will soon be dried away,
That childish grief however strong
Is only for a day,

And parted friends how dear soe'er
Will soon forgotten be;
It may be so with other hearts,
...

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...

Tune - "Bonnie Mary."



    Anna, thy charms my bosom fire,
        And waste my soul with care;
    But ah! how bootless to admire,
        When fated to despair!
    Yet in thy presence, lovely fair,
        To hope may be forgiv'n;
    For sure 'twere impious to despair,
        So much in sight of Heav'n.

She is too kind, I think, for mortal things,
Too gentle for the gusty ways of earth;
God gave to her a shy and silver mirth,
And made her soul as clear
And softly singing as an orchard spring's
In sheltered hollows all the sunny year,
A spring that thru the leaning grass looks up
And holds all heaven in its clarid cup,
Mirror to holy meadows high and blue
With stars like drops of dew.

I love to think that never tears at night
Have made her eyes less bright;
That all her girlhood thru
Never a cry of love made over-tense
Her voice's innocence;
That in her hands have lain,
Flowers beaten by the rain,
And little birds before they learned to sing
Drowned in the sudden ecstasy of spring.

I love to think that with a wistful wonder
She ...

If the loved one, the well-known one,
Should return as he departed,
On his lips would ring my kisses,
Though the wolf's blood might have dyed them;
And a hearty grasp I'd give him,
Though his finger-ends were serpents.

Wind! Oh, if thou hadst but reason,
Word for word in turns thou'dst carry,
E'en though some perchance might perish
'Tween two lovers so far distant.

All choice morsels I'd dispense with,
Table-flesh of priests neglect too,
Sooner than renounce my lover,
Whom, in Summer having vanquish'd,
I in Winter tamed still longer.

In this old garden, fair, I walk to-day
Heart-charmed with all the beauty of the scene:
The rich, luxuriant grasses' cooling green,
The wall's environ, ivy-decked and gray,
The waving branches with the wind at play,
The slight and tremulous blooms that show between,
Sweet all: and yet my yearning heart doth lean
Toward Love's Egyptian fleshpots far away.

Beside the wall, the slim Laburnum grows
And flings its golden flow'rs to every breeze.
But e'en among such soothing sights as these,
I pant and nurse my soul-devouring woes.
Of all the longings that our hearts wot of,
There is no hunger like the want of love!