She watched the sky, the sunset grew dim; She raised to CAMDEO her evening-hymn. The scent of the night-flowers came on the air;
And then, like a bird escaped from the snare,
She flew to the river-(no moon was bright,
But the stars and the fire-flies gave her
their light;)
She stood beneath the mangoes' shade,
Half delighted and half afraid;
She trimmed the lamp, and breathed on each
bloom,
(Oh, that breath was sweeter than all their
perfume!)
Threw spices and oil on the spire of flame,
Called thrice on her absent lover's name;
And every pulse throbbed as she gave
Her little boat to the Ganges' wave.
There are a thousand fanciful things
Linked round the young heart's imaginings.
In its first love-dream a leaf or a flower
Is gifted then with a spell and a power:
A shade is an omen, a dream is a sign,
From which the maiden can well divine
Passion's whole history. Those only can tell Who have loved as young hearts can love so well,
How the pulses will beat, and the cheek will be dyed,
When they have some love-augury tried. Oh, it is not for those whose feelings are cold, Withered by care, or blunted by gold; Whose brows have darkened with many years,
To feel again youth's hopes and fearsWhat they now might blush to confess, Yet what made their spring-day's happiness!
ZAIDE watched her flower-built vessel glide,
Mirrored beneath on the deep-blue tide;
Lovely and lonely, scented and bright,
Like Hope's own bark, all bloom and light.
There's not one breath of wind on the air,
The heavens are cloudless, the waters are
fair,
No dew is falling: yet woe to that shade!
The maiden is weeping, her lamp has decayed.
Hark to the ring of the cymetar!
It tells that the soldier returns from afar.
Down from the mountains the warriors come:
Hark to the thunder-roll of the drum!—
To the startling voice of the trumpet's call!—
To the cymbal's clash!—to the atabal!
The banners of crimson float in the sun,
The warfare is ended, the battle is won.
The mother hath taken the child from her
breast,
And raised it to look on its father's crest.
The pathway is lined, as the bands pass
along,
With maidens, who meet them with flowers
and song.
And ZAIDE hath forgotten in Azim's arms
All her so false lamp's falser alarms.
This looks not a bridal,—the singers are
Still is the mandore, and breathless the lute; Yet there the bride sits. Her dark hair is bound,
And the robe of her marriage floats white on the ground.
Oh! where is the lover, the bridegroom ?— oh! where? Look under yon black pall—the bridegroom is there! Yet the guests are all bidden, the feast is the same, And the bride plights her troth amid smoke and 'mid flame! They have raised the death-pyre of sweetscented wood,
And sprinkled it o'er with the sacred flood Of the Ganges. The priests are assembled:their song
Sinks deep on the ear as they bear her along,
That bride of the dead. Ay, is not this love?
That one pure, wild feeling all others above:
Vowed to the living, and kept to the tomb!-
The same in its blight as it was in its bloom.
With no tear in her eye, and no change in
her smile
Young ZAIDE had come nigh to the funeral
pile.
The bells of the dancing-girls ceased from their sound,
Silent they stood by that holiest mound; From a crowd like the sea-waves there came not a breath.
To the mother, who stood in her weeping
The laugh as glad, the step as light,
The song as sweet, the glance as bright;
As the laugh, step, and glance, and song,
Did to young happiness belong.
I turned me from the crowd, and reached
A spot which seemed unsought by all-
An alcove filled with shrubs and flowers,
But lighted by the distant hall,
With one or two fair statues placed,
Like deities of the sweet shrine.
That human art should ever frame
When the maiden stood by the place of death | Such shapes so utterly divine!
One moment was given—the last she might | A deep sigh breathed,—I knew the tone;
My cheek blushed warm, my heart beat high;
One moment more I too was known,
I shrank before LORENZO's eye.
He leant beside a pedestal:
The glorious brow, of Parian stone,
Of the Antinous, by his side,
Was not more noble than his own!
They were alike: he had the same
Thick-clustering curls the Roman wore-
The fixed and melancholy eye-
The smile which passed like lightning o'er
She took the jewels that shone on her hand,
She took from her dark hair its flowery band,
And scattered them round. At once they raise
The hymn of rejoicing and love in her praise.
A prayer is muttered, a blessing said,-
Her torch is raised!-she is by the dead.
She has fired the pile! At once there came
A mingled rush of smoke and of flame:
The wind swept it off. They saw the bride,—The curved lip. We did not speak,
Laid by her AZIM, side by side.
The breeze had spread the long curls of her
Like a banner of fire they played on the air. The smoke and the flame gathered round as before,
Then cleared;-but the bride was seen no
I heard the words of praise, but not
The one voice that I paused to hear;
And other sounds to me were like
A tale poured in a sleeper's ear.
Where was LORENZO?-He had stood
Spell-bound; but when I closed the lay,
As if the charm ceased with the song,
He darted hurriedly away.
I masqued again, and wandered on
Through many a gay and gorgeous room;
What with sweet waters, sweeter flowers,
The air was heavy with perfume,
The harp was echoing the lute,
Soft voices answered to the flute,
And, like rills in the noontide clear,
Beneath the flame-hung gondolier,
Shone mirrors peopled with the shades
Of stately youths and radiant maids;
And on the ear in whispers came
Those winged words of soul and flame,
Breathed in the dark-eyed beauty's ear
By some young love-touched cavalier;
Or mixed at times some sound more gay,
Of dance, or laugh, or roundelay.
Oh, it is sickness at the heart
To bear in revelry its part,
And yet feel bursting:-not one thing
Which has part in its suffering,——
But the heart breathed upon each cheek;
We looked round with those wandering looks,
Which seek some object for their gaze,
As if each other's glance was like
The too much light of morning's rays.
I saw a youth beside me kneel;
I heard my name in music steal;
I felt my hand trembling in his ;-
Another moment, and his kiss
Had burnt upon it; when, like thought,
So swift it past, my hand was thrown
Away, as if in sudden pain.
LORENZO like a dream had flown!
We did not meet again:-he seemed
To shun each spot where I might be:
And, it was said, another claimed
The heart-more than the world to me!
I loved him as young Genius loves,
When its own wild and radiant heaven
Of starry thought burns with the light,
The love, the life, by passion given.
I loved him, too, as woman loves-
Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn:
Life had no evil destiny
That, with him, I could not have borne!
I had been nurst in palaces;
Yet earth had not a spot so drear,
That I should not have thought a home,
In Paradise, had he been near!
How sweet it would have been to dwell,
Apart from all, in some green dell
Of sunny beauty, leaves and flowers;
And nestling birds to sing the hours!
Our home, beneath some chesnut's shade,
But of the woven branches made:
Our vesper-hymn, the low, lone wail
The rose hears from the nightingale;
And waked at morning by the call
Of music from a waterfall.
But not alone in dreams like this,
Breathed in the very hope of bliss,
I loved: my love had been the same
In hushed despair, in open shame.
I would have rather been a slave,
In tears, in bondage, by his side,
Than shared in all, if wanting him,
This world had power to give beside!
My heart was withered,-and my heart
Had ever been the world to me;
And love had been the first fond dream,
Whose life was in reality.
I had sprung from my solitude
Like a young bird upon the wing
To meet the arrow; so I met
My poisoned shaft of suffering.
And as that bird, with drooping crest
And broken wing, will seek his nest,
But seek in vain: so vain I sought
My pleasant home of song and thought.
There was one spell upon my brain,
Upon my pencil, on my strain;
But one face to my colours came;
My chords replied but to one name—
LORENZO!-all seemed vowed to thee,
To passion, and to misery!
I had no interest in the things
That once had been like life, or light;
No tale was pleasant to mine ear,
No song was sweet, no picture bright.
I was wild with my great distress,
My lone, my utter hopelessness!
I would sit hours by the side
Of some clear rill, and mark it glide,
Bearing my tears along, till night
Came with dark hours; and soft starlight
Watch o'er its shadowy beauty keeping,
Till I grew calm:-then I would take
The lute, which had all day been sleeping
Upon a cypress-tree, and wake
The echoes of the midnight-air
With words that love wrung from despair.
Farewell!-we shall not meet again
As we are parting now!
I must my beating heart restrain-
Must veil my burning brow!
Oh, I must coldly learn to hide
One thought, all else above---
Must call upon my woman's pride
To hide my woman's love! Check dreams I never may avow; Be free, be careless, cold as thou! Oh! those are tears of bitterness,
Wrung from the breaking heart, When two, blest in their tenderness Must learn to live-apart! But what are they to that long sigh, That cold and fixed despair, That weight of wasting agony It must be mine to bear?
Methinks I should not thus repine,
If I had but one vow of thine.
I could forgive inconstancy
To be one moment loved by thee!
With me the hope of life is gone,
The sun of joy is set;
One wish my soul still dwells upon-
The wish it could forget.
I would forget that look, that tone,
My heart hath all too dearly known.
But who could ever yet efface
From memory love's enduring trace?
All may revolt, all may complain-
But who is there may break the chain?
Farewell! I shall not be to thee
More than a passing thought;
But every time and place will be
With thy remembrance fraught!
Farewell! we have not often met—
We may not meet again;
But on my heart the seal is set
Love never sets in vain!
Fruitless as constancy may be,
No chance, no change, may turn from thee
One who has loved thee wildly, well-
But whose first love-vow breathed-farewell.
And lays which only told of love
In all its varied sorrowing,
The echoes of the broken heart,
Were all the songs I now could sing.
Legends of olden times in Greece,
When not a flower but had its tale;
When spirits haunted each green oak;
When voices spoke in every gale;
When not a star shone in the sky
Without its own love-history.
Amid its many songs was one
That suited well with my sick mind.
I sang it when the breath of flowers
Came sweet upon the midnight-wind.
She sat her in her twilight bower,
A temple formed of leaf and flower;
Rose and myrtle framed the roof,
To a shower of April proof;
And primroses, pale gems of spring,
Lay on the green turf glistening,
Close by the violet, whose breath
Is so sweet in a dewy wreath.
And oh, that myrtle! how green it grew!
With flowers as white as the pearls of dew
That shone beside: and the glorious rose
Lay like a beauty in warm repose,
Blushing in slumber. The air was bright
With the spirit and glow of its crimson light
CYDIPPE had turned from her columned hall. Where, the queen of the feast, she was worshipped by all:
Where the vases were burning with spices | Ere doubts and cares, and jealous pain,
And the odorous waters were playing in
And lamps were blazing-those lamps of perfume
Which shed such a charm of light over the bloom
Of woman, when Pleasure a spell has thrown Over one night-hour and made it her own. And the ruby wine-cup shone with a ray, As the gems of the East had there melted away; And the bards were singing those songs of fire, That bright eyes and the goblet so well inspire;
While she, the glory and pride of the hour, Sat silent and sad in her secret bower!
There is a grief that wastes the heart,
Like mildew on a tulip's dyes,-
When hope, deferred but to depart,
Loses its smiles, but keeps its sighs:
When love's bark, with its anchor gone,
Clings to a straw, and still trusts on.
Oh, more than all!-methinks that love
Should pray that it might ever be
Beside the burning shrine which had
Its young heart's fond idolatry.
Oh, absence is the night of love!
Lovers are very children then!
Fancying ten thousand feverish shapes,
Until their light returns again.
A look, a word, is then recalled,
And thought upon until it wears,
What is, perhaps, a very shade,
The tone and aspect of our fears.
And this is what was withering now
The radiance of CYDIPPE's brow.
She watched until her cheek grew pale;
The green wave bore no bounding sail:
Her sight grew dim; 'mid the blue air
No snowy dove came floating there,
The dear scroll hid beneath his wing,
With plume and soft eye glistening,
To seek again, in leafy dome,
The nest of its accustomed home!
Still far away, o'er land and seas,
Lingered the faithless LEADES.
Are flaws in the heart's diamond-chain:--
Men might forget to think on Heaven,
And yet have the sweet sin forgiven.
But ere the marriage-feast was spread,
LEADES said that he must brook
To part awhile from that best light,
Those eyes which fixed his every look:
Just press again his native shore,
And then he would that shore resign
For her dear sake, who was to him
His household-god!-his spirit's shrine!
He came not! Then the heart's decay
Wasted her silently away:-
A sweet fount, which the mid-day-sun
Has all too hotly looked upon!
It is most sad to watch the fall
Of autumn-leaves!-but worst of all
It is to watch the flower of spring
Faded in its fresh blossoming!
To see the once so clear blue orb
Its summer-light and warmth forget;
Darkening beneath its tearful lid,
Like a rain-beaten violet !
To watch the banner-rose of health
Pass from the cheek!-to mark how plain
Upon the wan and sunken brow,
|Become the wanderings of each vein !
The shadowy hand so thin, so pale!
The languid step!-the drooping head!
The long wreaths of neglected hair!
The lip whence red and smile are fled!
And having watched thus, day by day,
Light, life, and colour, pass away!
To see, at length, the glassy eye
Fix dull in dread mortality;
| Mark the last ray, catch the last breath, Till the grave sets its signs of death!
This was CYDIPPE'S fate! They laid
The maiden underneath the shade
Of a green cypress,—and that hour
The tree was withered, and stood bare!
The spring brought leaves to other trees,
She thought on the spring-days, when she But never other leaf grew there!
Lonely and lovely, a maiden-queen:
When passion to her was a storm at sea,
Heard 'mid the green land's tranquillity.
But a stately warrior came from afar;
He bore on his bosom the glorious scar
So worshipped by woman—the death-seal of
And the maiden's heart was an easy prize,
When valour and faith were her sacrifice.
Methinks, might that sweet season last,
In which our first love-dream is past,
It stood, 'mid others flourishing, A blighted, solitary thing.
The summer-sun shone on that tree
When shot a vessel o'er the sea-
When sprang a warrior from the prow-
LEADES! by the stately brow.
Forgotten toil, forgotten care,
All his worn heart has had to bear.
That heart is full! He hears the sigh
That breathed Farewell! so tenderly.
If even then it was most sweet,
What will it be that now they meet?
Alas! alas! Hope's fair deceit!
He spurred o'er land, has cut the wave,
To look but on CYDIPPE's grave.
It has blossomed in beauty, that lone tree,
LEADES' kiss restored its bloom;
For wild he kissed the withered stem-
It grew upon CYDIPPE's tomb!
And there he dwelt. The hottest ray,
Still dew upon the branches lay
Like constant tears. The winter came;
But still the green tree stood the same.
And it was said, at evening's close,
A sound of whispered music rose;
That 'twas the trace of viewless feet
Made the flowers more than flowers sweet.
At length LEADES died. That day,
Bark and green foliage past away
From the lone tree,-again a thing
Of wonder and of perishing!
One evening I had roamed beside
The winding of the Arno's tide;
The sky was flooded with moonlight:
Below were waters azure bright,
Palazzos with their marble-halls,
Green gardens, silver waterfalls,
And orange-groves and citron-shades,
And cavaliers and dark-eyed maids;
Sweet voices singing, echoes sent
From many a rich-toned instrument.
I could not bear this loveliness!
It was on such a night as this
That love had lighted up my dream
Of long despair and short-lived bliss.
I sought the city; wandering on,
Unconscious where my steps might be:
My heart was deep in other thoughts;
All places were alike to me:--
At length I stopped beneath the walls
Of San Mark's old cathedral halls.
I entered:-and, beneath the roof,
Ten thousand wax-lights burnt on high;
And incense on the censers fumed
As for some great solemnity.
The white-robed choristers were singing;
Their cheerful peal the bells were ringing:
Then deep-voiced music floated round,
As the far arches sent forth sound-
The stately organ:—and fair bands
Of young girls strewed, with lavish hands,
Violets o'er the mosaic floor;
And sang while scattering the sweet store.
I turned me to a distant aisle Where but a feeble glimmering came (Itself in darkness) of the smile Sent from the tapers' perfumed flame; And coloured as cach pictured pane Shed o'er the blaze its crimson stain:
While, from the window o'er my head,
A dim and sickly gleam was shed
From the young moon,-enough to show
That tomb and tablet lay below.
leant upon one monument,—
"Twas sacred to unhappy love:
On it were carved a blighted pine-
A broken ring—a wounded dove.
And two or three brief words told all
Her history who lay beneath :-
The flowers-at morn her bridal flowers,—
Formed, ere the eve, her funeral wreath.
I could but envy her. I thought,
How sweet it must be thus to die!
Your last looks watched, your last sigh
caught,
As life or heaven were in that sigh!
Passing in loveliness and light;
Your heart as pure, your cheek as bright
As the spring-rose, whose petals shut
By sun unscorched, by shower unwet;
Leaving behind a memory
Shrined in love's fond eternity.
But I was wakened from this dream
By a burst of light-a gush of song-
A welcome, as the stately doors
Poured in a gay and gorgeous throng.
I could see all from where I stood.
And first I looked upon the bride;
She was a pale and lovely girl;-
But, oh God! who was by her side?—
LORENZO!-No, I did not speak ;
My heart beat high, but could not break.
I shrieked not, wept not: but stood there
Motionless in my still despair;
As I were forced by some strange thrall,
To bear with and to look on all,—
I heard the hymn, I heard the vow;
(Mine ear throbs with them even now!)
I saw the young bride's timid cheek
Blushing beneath her silver veil.
I saw LORENZO kneel! Methought
('Twas but a thought!) he too was pale.
But when it ended, and his lip
Was prest to hers-I saw no more! My heart grew cold, my brain swam round,
I sank upon the cloister-floor!
I lived, if that may be called life,
From which each charm of life has fled-
In all but breath already dead.
Happiness gone, with hope and love,-
Rust gathered on the silent chords Of my neglected lyre,-the breeze Was now its mistress: music brought For me too bitter memories! The ivy darkened o'er my bower; Around, the weeds choked every flower. I pleased me in this desolateness, As each thing bore my fate's impress.
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