Was filled but with his image. She had soothed
And watched his few last hours-but he was gone!
The grave to her was now the goal of hope! She passed, but gently as the rose-leaves fall Scattered by the spring-gales. Two months had fled
Since RONALD died; they threw the summerflowers
Upon his sod, and ere those leaves were tinged
With autumn's yellow colours, they were twined
For the poor ELLEN's death-wreaths! . They made her grave by RONALD'S.
WRITTEN UNDER A PICTURE OF A GIRL BURNING A LOVE-LETTER.
The lines were filled with many a tender thing, All the impassioned heart's fond commaning.
I TOOK the scroll: I could not brook An eye to gaze on it save mine;
I could not bear another's look
It was a little temple, gray, With half its pillars worn away, No roof left, but one cypress-tree Flinging its branches mournfully : In ancient days this was a shrine For goddess or for nymph divine. And sometimes I have dreamed I heard A step soft as a lover's word, And caught a perfume on the air, And saw a shadow gliding fair, Dim, sad as if it came to sigh O'er thoughts, and things, and time passed by! On one side of the temple stood A deep and solitary wood,
Where chesnuts reared their giant length, And mocked the fallen columns' strength; It was the lone wood-pigeon's home, And flocks of them would ofttimes come, And, lighting on the temple, pour A cooing dirge to days no more! And by its side there was a lake With only snow-white swans to break, With ebon feet and silver wing, The quiet waters' glittering.
And when sometimes, as eve closed in, I waked my lonely mandolin, The gentle birds came gliding near, As if they loved that song to hear.
'Tis past, 'tis past, my happiness
Should dwell upon one thought of thine. Was all too pure and passionless!
My lamp was burning by my side, I held thy letter to the flame,
I marked the blaze swift o'er it glide, It did not even spare thy name. Soon the light from the embers past, I felt so sad to see it die, So bright at first, so dark at last, I feared it was Love's history.
YOUR skies are blue, your sun is bright; But sky nor sun has that sweet light Which gleamed upon the summer-sky Of my own lovely ITALY!
"Tis long since I have breathed the air, Which, filled with odours, floated there,- Sometimes in sleep a gale sweeps by, Rich with the rose and myrtle's sigh;- 'Tis long since I have seen the vine With Autumn's topaz clusters shine; And watched the laden branches bending, And heard the vintage-songs ascending; 'Tis very long since I have seen
The ivy's death-wreath, cold and green, Hung round the old and broken stone Raised by the hands now dead and gone! I do remember one lone spot, By most unnoticed or forgot— Would that I too recalled it not!
I waked from calm and pleasant dreams To watch the morning's earliest gleams, Wandering with light feet 'mid the dew, Till my cheek caught its rosy hue; And when uprose the bright-eyed moon, I sorrowed day was done so soon; Save that I loved the sweet starlight, The soft, the happy sleep of night!
Our first kiss sealed, we stood beneath The cypress-tree's funereal wreath, That temple's roof. But what thought I Of aught like evil augury!
I only felt his burning sighs, I only looked within his eyes, I saw no dooming star above, There is such happiness in love! I left, with him, my native shore, Not as a bride who passes o'er Her father's threshold with his blessing, With flowers strewn and friends caressing, Kind words, and purest hopes to cheer The bashfulness of maiden fear; But I-I fled as culprits fly, By night, watched only by one eye, Whose look was all the world to me, And it met mine so tenderly,
I thought not of the days to come, I thought not of my own sweet home, Nor of mine aged father's sorrow,— Wild love takes no thought for to-morrow. I left my home, and I was left A stranger in his land, bereft Of even hope; there was not one Familiar face to look upon.—
Their speech was strange. This penalty Was meet; but surely not from thee, False love!-'twas not for thee to break The heart but sullied for thy sake!—
MANMADIN, THE INDIAN CUPID,
FLOATING DOWN THE GANGES.
THERE is darkness on the sky, And the troubled waves run high, And the lightning-flash is breaking, And the thunder-peal is waking; Reddening meteors, strange and bright, Cross the rainbow's timid light, As if mingled hope and fear, Storm and sunshine, shook the sphere. Tempest-winds rush fierce along, Bearing yet a sound of song, Music's on the tempest's wing, Wafting thee, young MANMADIN! Pillowed on a lotus-flower Gathered in a summer-hour, Rides he o'er the mountain-wave Which would be a tall ship's grave! At his back his bow is slung, Sugar-cane, with wild bees strung,- Bees born with the buds of spring, Yet with each a deadly sting ;- Grasping in his infant hand Arrows in their silken band, Each made of a signal flower, Emblem of its varied power; Some formed of the silver leaf Of the almond, bright and brief, Just a frail and lovely thing, For but one hour's flourishing; Others, on whose shaft there glows The red beauty of the rose;
Some in spring's half-folded bloom, Some in summer's full perfume; bloom-Some with withered leaves and sere, Falling with the falling year;
I could have wished once more to see Thy green hills, loveliest ITALY! I could have wished yet to have hung Upon the music of thy tongue; I could have wished thy flowers to Thy cypress planted by my tomb! This wish is vain, my grave must be Far distant from my own country! I must rest here.-Oh lay me then By the white church in yonder glen; Amid the darkening elms, it seems, Thus silvered over by the beams Of the pale moon, a very shrine For wounded hearts-it shall be mine! There is one corner, green and lone, A dark yew over it has thrown Long, night-like boughs; 'tis thickly set With primrose and with violet.
Their bloom 's now past; but in the spring They will be sweet and glistening. There is a bird, too, of your clime, That sings there in the winter-time; My funeral hymn his song will be, Which there are none to chant, save he. And let there be memorial none, No name upon the cold white stone: The only heart where I would be Remembered, is now dead to me! I would not even have him weep O'er his Italian love's last sleep. Oh, tears are a most worthless token
Some bright with the rainbow-dyes Of the tulip's vanities;
Some, bound with the lily's bell, Breathe of love that dares not tell Its sweet feelings; the dark leaves Of the esignum, which grieves Droopingly, round some were bound; Others were with tendrils wound Of the green and laughing vine,- And the barb was dipped in wine. But all these are summer-ills, Like the tree whose stem distils Balm beneath its pleasant shade In the wounds its thorns have made. Though the flowers may fade and die, 'Tis but a light penalty.
All these bloom-clad darts are meant But for a short-lived content! Yet one arrow has a power Lasting till life's latest hour- Weary day and sleepless night, Lightning-gleams of fierce delight, Fragrant and yet poisoned sighs, Agonies and ecstasies;
Hopes, like fires amid the gloom,
When hearts they would have soothed are Lighting only to consume!
L. E. LANDON'S MISCELLANEOUS POEMS.
Doubt, despairing, crime, and craft, Are upon that honied shaft! It has made the crowned king Crouch beneath his suffering; Made the beauty's cheek more pale Than the foldings of her veil; Like a child the soldier kneel Who had mocked at flame or steel; Bade the fires of genius turn
On their own breasts, and there burn; A wound, a blight, a curse, a doom, Bowing young hearts to the tomb! Well may storm be on the sky, And the waters roll on high, When MANMADin passes by. Earth below, and heaven above, Well may bend to thee, oh Love!
VIOLETS!-deep-blue violets! April's loveliest coronets!
There are no flowers grow in the vale, Kissed by the dew, wooed by the gale,- None by the dew of the twilight wet, So sweet as the deep-blue violet; I do remember how sweet a breath Came with the azure light of a wreath
That hung round the wild harp's golden
Which rang to my dark-eyed lover's words. I have seen that dear harp rolled With gems of the East and bands of gold; But it never was sweeter than when set With leaves of the deep-blue violet! And when the grave shall open for me,- I care not how soon that time may be,— Never a rose shall grow on that tomb, It breathes too much of hope and of bloom; But there be that flower's meek regret, The bending and deep-blue violet!
His golden hair has a deeper brown, And his brow has caught a darker frown, And his lip hath lost its boyish red, And the shade of the south o'er his cheek is spread ;
But stately his step, and his bearing high, And wild the light of his fiery eye; And proud in the lists were the maiden bright Who might claim the Knight of the Cross for her knight.
But he rides for the home he has pined to see In the court, in the camp, in captivity.
He reached the castle,-the gate was thrown
Open and wide, but he stood there alone; He entered the door,-his own step was all That echoed within the deserted hall; He stood on the roof of the ancient tower, And for banner there waved one pale wall- flower;
And for sound of the trumpet and sound of the horn, Came the scream of the owl on the night- wind borne;
And the turrets were falling, the vassals were flown, And the bat ruled the halls he had thought his own.
Might he soothe with sweet thoughts his spirit's pain;
His heart throbbed high: oh, never again
He never might think on his boyish years Till his eyes grew dim with those sweet warm tears
Which Hope and Memory shed when they meet.
The grave of his kindred was at his feet: He stood alone, the last of his race, With the cold, wide world for his dwelling- place.
The home of his fathers gone to decay,— All but their memory was passed away; No one to welcome, no one to share, The laurel he no more was proud to wear: He came in the pride of his war-success But to weep over very desolateness. They pointed him to a barren plain
He is come from the land of the sword and Where his father, his brothers, his kinsmen
From the sainted battles of Palestine; The snow-plumes wave o'er his victor-crest, Like a glory the red cross hangs at his breast; His courser is black as black can be, Save the brow-star white as the foam of
the sea, And he wears a scarf of broidery rare, The last love-gift of his lady fair: It bore for device a cross and a dove, And the words, I am vowed to my God and my love!
Amid the warriors of Palestine Is one, the first in the battle-line; It is not for glory he seeks the field, For a blasted tree is upon his shield, And the motto he bears is, "I fight for a grave: "
He comes not back the same that he went, For his sword has been tried, and his strength | He found it-that warrior has died with
That Christ, our Captain, triumph'd over
SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN IN A BURIAL-GROUND And is the first fruits of the dead below;
BELONGING TO THE SOCIETY OF FRIENDS.
WHAT though no sculptur'd monuments around,
With epitaphs engraven, meet me herc; Yet conscious feeling owns, with awe pro- found,
The habitation of the dead is near: With reverend feeling, not with childish fear, I tread the ground which they, when living, trod:
Pondering this truth, to Christians justly dear, Whose influence lends an interest to the sod That covers their remains:-The dead still live to God!
Is it not written in the hallow'd page Of Revelation, God remains to be The Lord of all, in every clime and age, Who fear'd and serv'd him living? Did not He, Who for our sins expir'd upon the tree, Style him of Abram, Isaac, Jacob,-Lord! Because they liv'd to Him? Then why should
(As if we could no fitter meed afford) Raise them memorials here?-Their dust shall be restor❜d.
Could we conceive Death was indeed the close Of our existence, Nature might demand That, where the reliques of our friends repose, Some record to their memory should stand, To keep them unforgotten in the land :— Then, then indeed, urn, tomb, or marble-bust, By sculptor's art elaborately plann'd, Would seem a debt due to their mouldering
That he has trod for man this path of woe, Dying, to rise again!—we would not grace Death's transitory spell with trophied show; As if that shadowy vale supplied no trace To prove the grave is not our final dwellingplace.
The poet's page, indeed, would fain supply A specious reason for the sculptor's art; Telling of "holy texts that teach to die:" But much I doubt they seldom reach the heart
Of church-yard-rovers. How should truths impart
Instruction, when engraven upon stone, If unconfess'd before? The Christian's chart Records the answer unto Dives known, Who, for his brethren's sake, pleaded in suppliant tone.
If Moses and the Prophets speak unheard, | Neither would they believe if spoke the dead. Then how should those, by whom unmov'd the word
Of greater far than such has oft been read, By random texts, thus strewn around, be led Aright to live, or die? And how much less Can false and foolish tributes, idly spread, In mockery of truth and tenderness, Awaken solemn thoughts, or holy themes impress?
And, therefore, would I never wish to see Tombstone, or epitaph obtruded here. All has been done, requir'd by decency, When the unprison'd spirit sought its sphere: Though time would soon efface the perish-The lifeless body, stretch'd upon the bier
But, hoping, and believing; yea, through Faith,
Knowing, because His word has told us so,
With due solemnity, was laid in earth; And Friendship's parting sigh, Affection's tear, Claim'd by pure love, and deeply cherish'd worth,
Might rise or fall uncheck'd, as sorrow gave them birth.
There wanted not the pall, or nodding plume, | While that inscription was recording there; The white-rob'd priest, the stated form of And, till his earthly course shall be fulfill'd, That tablet, indestructible, must bear The mourner's woe, in lines Death can alone
There needed not the livery'd garb of gloom, That grief, or carelessness, alike might
Could I but hope a lot so blest as thine Awaited me, no happier would I crave: That hope should then forbid me to repine That Heaven so soon resum'd the gift it
gave; That hope should teach me every ill to brave;
Itself, before one thought to such poor Should whisper, 'mid the tempest's loudest
And, when it hath so spent itself, does it Need other pile than what itself can build? O no!-it has an epitaph unwrit, Yet graven deeper far than the most skill'd Of artists' tool can reach:-the full heart thrill'd,
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