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And the first song came from the dove,
Nestling in the shrub alcove.

But why pause on my happiness?—
Another step was with mine there!
Another sigh than mine made sweet
With its dear breath the scented air!
LORENZO! Could it be my hand

That now was trembling in thine own?
LORENZO! Could it be mine ear

That drank the music of thy tone?

We sat us by a lattice, where

Came in the soothing evening breeze,
Rich with the gifts of early flowers,
And the soft wind-lute's symphonies.
And in the twilight's vesper-hour,
Beneath the hanging jasmine-shower,
I heard a tale,-as fond, as dear
As e'er was poured in woman's ear!

LORENZO'S HISTORY.

I WAS betrothed from earliest youth
To a fair orphan, who was left
Beneath my
father's roof and care,-
Of every other friend bereft :
An heiress, with her fertile vales,
Caskets of Indian gold and pearl;
Yet meek as poverty itself,

And timid as a peasant girl :
A delicate, frail thing,-but made.
For spring sunshine, or summer shade;
A slender flower, unmeet to bear
One April shower,-so slight, so fair.

I loved her as a brother loves

His favourite sister :-and when war First called me from our long-shared home To bear my father's sword afar,

I parted from her,—not as one

Whose life and soul are wrung by parting: With death-cold brow and throbbing pulse, And burning tears like life-blood starting. Lost in war dreams, I scarcely heard

The prayer that bore my name above:
The Farewell!' that kissed off her tears,
Had more of pity than of love!

I thought of her not with that deep,
Intensest memory love will keep
More tenderly than life. To me

She was but as a dream of home,—
One of those calm and pleasant thoughts
That o'er the soldier's spirit come;
Remembering him, when battle lours,
Of twilight walks and fireside hours.

I came to thy bright FLORENCE when
The task of blood was done:

I saw thee!

Had I lived before?

Oh, no! my life but then begun.

58

Ay, by that blush! the summer rose
Has not more luxury of light!
Ay, by those eyes! whose language is
Like what the clear stars speak at night,
Thy first look was a fever spell !—
Thy first word was an oracle

Which sealed my fate! I worshipped thee,
My beautiful, bright deity!

Worshipped thee as a sacred thing
Of Genius' high imagining ;-
But loved thee for thy sweet revealing
Of woman's own most gentle feeling.
I might have broken from the chain
Thy power, thy glory, round me flung!
But never might forget thy blush-

The smile which on thy sweet lips hung!
I lived but in thy sight! One night

From thy hair fell a myrtle blossom;
It was a relic that breathed of thee :-
Look! it has withered in my bosom!
Yet was I wretched, though I dwelt
In the sweet sight of Paradise:
A curse lay on me. But not now,
Thus smiled upon by those dear eyes,
Will I think over thoughts of pain.
I'll only tell thee that the line
That ever told Love's misery,
Ne'er told of misery like mine!
I wedded.-I could not have borne
To see the young IANTHE blighted
By that worst blight the spring can know-
Trusting affection ill requited!

Oh, was it that she was too fair,

Too innocent for this damp earth;
And that her native star above

Reclaimed again its gentle birth?
She faded. Oh, my peerless queen,
I need not pray thee pardon me
For owning that my heart then felt
For any other than for thee!

I bore her to those azure isles

Where health dwells by the side of spring;
And deemed their green and sunny vales,
And calm and fragrant airs, might bring
Warmth to the cheek, light to the eye,
Of her who was too young to die.
It was in vain!—and, day by day,
The gentle creature died away.
As parts the odour from the rose,—
As fades the sky at twilight's close,—
She past so tender and so fair;

So patient, though she knew each breath
Might be her last; her own mild smile

Parted her placid lips in death.

Her grave is under southern skies;
Green turf and flowers o'er it rise.

ATHENEUM VOL. 2. 2d series.

Oh! nothing but a pale spring wreath Would fade o'er her who lies beneath! her tears

I gave her prayers-I gave

I staid awhile beside her grave;
Then led by Hope, and led by Love,
Again I cut the azure wave.
What have I more to say, my life!

But just to pray one smile of thine,
Telling I have not loved in vain-

That thou dost join these hopes of mine? Yes, smile, sweet love! our life will be

As radiant as a fairy tale!

Glad as the sky-lark's earliest song→→

Sweet as the sigh of the spring gale!

All, all that life will ever be,
Shone o'er, divinest love! by thee.

Oh, mockery of happiness!

Love now was all too late to save. False Love! oh, what had you to do With one you had led to the grave ? A little time I had been glad

To mark the paleness on my cheek; To feel how, day by day, my step

Grew fainter, and my hand more weak : To know the fever of my soul

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Was also preying on my frame:
But now I would have given worlds
To change the crimson hectic's flame
For the pure rose of health; to live
For the dear life that Love could give.
~Oh, youth may sicken at its bloom,
And wealth and fame pray for the tomb
But can love bear from love to part,
And not cling to that one dear heart?
I shrank away from death,-my tears
Had been unwept in other years:-
But thus, in Love's first ecstacy,
Was it not worse than death to die?
LORENZO! I wonld live for thee!
But thou wilt have to weep for me!
That sun has kissed the morning dews,➡
I shall not see its twilight close!
That rose is fading in the noon,

And I shall not outlive that rose !
Come, let me lean upon thy breast,
My last, best place of happiest rest!
Once more let me breathe thy sighs-
Look once more in those watching eyes!
Oh! but for thee, and grief of thine,
And parting, I should not repine!
It is deep happiness to die,
Yet live in Love's dear memory.
Thou wilt remember me, my name
Is linked with beauty and with fame.
The summer airs, the summer sky,
The soothing spell of Music's sigh,-

Stars in their poetry of night,

The silver silence of moonlight,—

The dim blush of the twilight hours,

The fragrance of the bee-kissed flowers ;-
But, more than all, sweet songs will be
Thrice sacred unto Love and me.
LORENZO !-be this kiss a spell!

My first!-my last! FAREWELL !-FAREWELL !

THERE is a lone and stately hall,-
Its master dwells apart from all.
A wanderer through Italia's land,
One night a refuge there I found.

The lightning flash rolled o'er the sky,

The torrent rain was sweeping round ;-
These won me entrance. He was young,
The castle's lord, but pale like age;
His brow, as sculpture beautiful,

Was wan as Grief's corroded page.
He had no words, he had no smiles,
No hopes his sole employ to brood
Silently over his sick heart

In sorrow and in solitude.

I saw the hall where, day by day,
He mused his weary life away ;-
It scarcely seemed a place for woe,
But rather like a genii's home.
Around were graceful statues ranged,
And pictures shone around the dome.
But there was one-a loveliest one!-
One picture brightest of all there!
Oh! never did the painter's dream
Shape thing so gloriously fair!
It was a face!-the summer day
Is not more radiant in its light!
Dark flashing eyes, like the deep stars
Lighting the azure brow of night;
A blush like sunrise o'er the rose;

A cloud of raven hair, whose shade
Was sweet as evening's, and whose curls
Clustered beneath a laurel braid.
She leant upon a harpone hand
Wandered, like snow, amid the chords;
The lips were opening with such life,
You almost heard the silvery words.
She looked a form of light and life,-
All soul, all passion, and all fire;

A priestess of Apollo's, when

The morning beam falls on her lyre;

A Sappho, or ere love had turned

The heart to stone where once it burned,
But by the picture's side was placed
A funeral urn, on which was traced
The heart's recorded wretchedness ;-
And on a tablet, hung above,
Was 'graved one tribute of sad words-
'LORENZO TO HIS MINSTEL Love.'

HOMMAGE AUX DAMES. OR, A NEW YEAR'S PRESENT.

ANOTHER extremely pretty pre

sent for the near approaching holiday time of the year, dedicated "to the Ladies," and not unworthy of their patronage. The literary contributions which fill it are anonymous, for the writers whisper they are aware that to talk of themselves is not the way to please the ladies. Both the prose and verse, nevertheless, do them much credit; and there is above a hundred and fifty pages of very agreeable reading, before we come to a little musical piece, blank pages for a diary, and places of amusement in the metropolis. To exemplify our opinion, we shall endeavour to compress "The Haunted Head, or la Testa di Marte," an exceedingly well told story, into such compass as our limits admit;

THE HAUNTED HEAD.

"It was yet early on a May morning, in the year 1540, when two travellers alighted at the little cabaret, known by the sign of Les quatre fils d'Aymon at the entrance of the forest of Fontainbleau. They rode two very sorry horses, and each of them carried a package behind his saddle."

These were the famous Benvenuto Cellini, "as mad a man of genius as the sun of Italy, which has long been used to mad geniuses, ever looked upon," and his handsome pupil Ascanio, who were carrying some works of art to the King of France at Fontainbleau. For reasons assigned, Cellini sets out by himself leaving Ascanio; and he, getting tired towards evening, proposes to walk in the forest; but, before setting out, is specially warned to take care, in the first place, that the Gardes de Chasse did not shoot him instead of a buck; and in the next, that he did not stray too near a large house, which he would see at about a quarter of an hour's walk distant to the right of the path." This house, the host tells him " belongs to the Chancellor Poyet, who says he does not choose to be disturbed in the meditations to which he devotes him self for the good of the state, by idle

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stragglers. To enforce his orders, too, a

he has an ugly raw-boned Swiss for a s porter, who threatened to cudgel mex one day for walking too near bis gar-> den wall, and the Gascon Captain Sangfeu, who cut off poor Blaise's ear for doing as little." There is also ac hint of a poor young lady being shut up in this guarded mansion; and its may be anticipated that Ascanio wanders that way. "A long garden, inclosed by a high wall, and thickly s planted on both sides with trees, which entirely concealed its interior from view, was at the back, and it was this s which Ascanio first approached.

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"He heard a low voice which he

thought was that of a woman in distress, and listening more intently and approaching nearer, he was satisfied that his first impression was correct. He distinctly heard sobs and such expressions of sorrow as convinced him that the person from whom they proceeded was indulging her grief alone. A large birch tree grew against the garden wall near the place where he stood; he paused for a moment to deliberate whether he could justify the curiosity he felt, when the hint of the hostess that a lady was imprisoned there, came across his mind, and without further hesitation he ascended the tree.

Ascanio looked from the height he had gained, and saw a young female sitting on a low garden seat immediately below the bough on which he stood. She was weeping. At length, raising her head, she dried her eyes, and taking up a guitar which lay beside her, she struck some of the chords, and played the symphony to a plaintive air which was then well known.: Ascanio gazed in breathless anxiety, and wondered that one so fair should have cause for so deep a sorrow as she was evidently suffering under.

In a colloquy which ensues, she exhorts him to fly, tells him she is an or phan whom Poyet wants to force into marriage; and finally agrees to elope with her young lover.

“Ascanio clasped the maiden in his

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