And the first song came from the dove, But why pause on my happiness?— That now was trembling in thine own? That drank the music of thy tone? We sat us by a lattice, where Came in the soothing evening breeze, LORENZO'S HISTORY. I WAS betrothed from earliest youth And timid as a peasant girl : 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: I thought of her not with that deep, She was but as a dream of home,— I came to thy bright FLORENCE when I saw thee! Had I lived before? Oh, no! my life but then begun. 58 Ay, by that blush! the summer rose Which sealed my fate! I worshipped thee, Worshipped thee as a sacred thing The smile which on thy sweet lips hung! From thy hair fell a myrtle blossom; Oh, was it that she was too fair, Too innocent for this damp earth; Reclaimed again its gentle birth? I bore her to those azure isles Where health dwells by the side of spring; So patient, though she knew each breath Parted her placid lips in death. Her grave is under southern skies; 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; But just to pray one smile of thine, 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, 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 Was also preying on my frame: And I shall not outlive that rose ! 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 ;- My first!-my last! FAREWELL !-FAREWELL ! THERE is a lone and stately hall,- The lightning flash rolled o'er the sky, The torrent rain was sweeping round ;- Was wan as Grief's corroded page. In sorrow and in solitude. I saw the hall where, day by day, A cloud of raven hair, whose shade 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, 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 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. "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 |