MISCELLANEOUS PO E M S.

Love! gentlest spirit! I do tell of thee,
Of all thy thousand hopes, thy many fears,
Thy morning-blushes,and thy evening-tears;
What thou hast ever been, and still wilt be,-In other days, that song her vesper-hyma
Life's best, but most betraying witchery!

Now distant far, is pictured on her mind.A chesnut shadowing a low white cot, Where orange, citron, and the soft lime-With rose and jasmine round the casement

And worn by grief, though grief might
not efface

The seal that beauty set in happier years;
And such a smile as on the brow appears
Of one whose earthly thoughts, long since
subdued

Past this life's joys and sorrows, hopes and fears

The worldly dreams o'er which the many brood;

The heart-beat hushed in mild and chastened
mood.

It was the image of the maid who wept
Those precious tears that heal and purify.
Love yet upon her lip his station kept,
But Heaven and heavenly thoughts were in
her eye.

One knelt before the shrine, with check as
pale

As was the cold white marble. Can this be
The young-the loved-the happy ROSALIE?
Alas! alas! hers is a common tale :-
She trusted, as youth ever has believed:—
She heard Love's vows-confided-was de-
ceived!

Oh, Love thy essence is thy purity! Breathe one unhallowed breath upon thy flame,

And it is gone for ever,-and but leaves
A sullied vase-its pure light lost in shame!

And ROSALIE was loved,—not with that pure And holy passion which can age endure; But loved with wild and self-consuming fires,

A torch which glares-and scorches-and

She thought upon her love; and there was | Worth restlessness,oppression,goading fears, And long-deferred hopes of many years.—

not

In passion's record one green sunny spot-To reach again that little quiet spot,
It had been all a madness and a dream,
The shadow of a flower on the stream,
Which seems, but is not; and then memory
turned

To her lone mother. How her bosom burned
With sweet and bitter thoughts! There
might be rest—

The wounded dove will flee into her nest-
That mother's arms might fold her child
again.

The cold world scorn, the cruel smite in vain,
And falsehood be remembered no more,
In that calm shelter:-and she might weep
o'er

Her faults and find forgiveness. Had not she
To whom she knelt found pardon in the eyes
Of Heaven, in offering for sacrifice
A broken heart? And might not pardon be
Also for her? She looked up to the face
Of that pale saint; and in that gentle brow,
Which seemed to hold communion with her
thought,

There was a smile which gave hope energy.
She prayed one deep, wild prayer,-that she
might gain
then sought that
home again.

The home she hoped;

--

A flush of beauty is upon the skyEve's last warm blushes-like the crimson dye The maiden wears, when first her dark eyes

meet

The graceful lover's, sighing at her feet.
And there were sounds of music on the breeze,
And perfume shaken from the citron-trees;
While the dark chesnuts caught a golden ray
On their green leaves, the last bright gift
of day;

And peasants dancing gaily in the shade
To the soft mandolin, whose light notes made
An echo fit to the glad voices singing.
The twilight-spirit his sweet urn is flinging
Of dew upon the lime and orange-stems,
And giving to the rose pearl-diadems.

There is a pilgrim by that old gray tree, With head upon her hand bent mournfully; And looking round upon each lovely thing, And breathing the sweet air, as they could bring

So well loved once, and never quite forgot ; –
To trace again the steps of infancy,
And catch their freshness from their memory!
And it is triumph, sure, when fortune's sun
Has shone upon us, and our task is done,
To show our harvest to the eyes which were
Once all the world to us! Perhaps there are
Some who had presaged kindly of our youth.
Feel we not proud their prophecy was sooth?
But how felt ROSALIE?-The very air
Seemed as it brought reproach! there was
no eye

To look delighted, welcome none was there!
She felt as feels an outcast wandering by
Where every door is closed! She looked
around ;-

She heard some voices' sweet familiar sound.
There were some changed and some remem-
bered things;

There were girls, whom she left in their first
springs,

Now blushed into full beauty; there was one
Whom she loved tenderly in days now gone!
She was not dancing gaily with the rest:
A rose-cheeked child within her arms was
prest;

And it had twined its small hands in the hair
That clustered o'er its mother's brow: as fair
As buds in spring. She gave her laughing

dove

To one who clasped it with a father's love;
And if a painter's eye had sought a scene
Of love in its most perfect loveliness-
Of childhood, and of wedded happiness,-
He would have painted the sweet MADELINE!
But ROSALIE shrank from them, and she
strayed

Through a small grove of cypresses, whose
shade

Hung o'er a burying-ground, where the low

stone

And the gray cross recorded those now gone!
There was a grave just closed. Not one
seemed near,

To pay the tribute of one long-last tear!
How very desolate must that one be
Whose more than grave has not a memory!

Then ROSALIE thought on her mother's

age,

Just such her end would be with her away
No child the last cold death-pang to assuage-
No child by her neglected tomb to pray!

To her no beauty and no solacing. 'Tis ROSALIE! Her prayer was not in vain. The truant-child has sought her home again! | She asked-and like a hope from Heaven it

It must be worth a life of toil and care,Worth those dark chains the wearied one must bear

Who toils up fortune's steep,-all that can wring

The worn-out bosom with lone suffering,

came!

To hear them answer with a stranger's name.

She reached her mother's cottage; by that gate She thought how her once lover wont to wait

thought

On all the utter ruin he had wrought!
The moon shone brightly, as it used to do
Ere youth, and hope, and love, had been
untrue;

To tell her honied tales; and then she | A thousand deep-blue violets have grown
Over the sod.-I do love violets:
They tell the history of woman's love;
They open with the earliest breath of spring;
Lead a sweet life of perfume, dew and light;
And, if they perish, perish with a sigh
Delicious as that life; on the hot June
They shed no perfume; the flowers may
remain,

But it shone o'er the desolate! The flowers
Were dead; the faded jessamine, unbound,
Trailed, like a heavy weed, upon the ground;
And fell the moonlight vainly over trees,
Which had not even one rose, although
the breeze,

Almost as if in mockery, had brought
Sweet tones it from the nightingale had
caught!

But the rich breathing of their leaves is
past;-

Like woman, they have lost their loveliest
gift,
When yielding to the fiery hour of passion:
The violet-breath of love is purity.

On the shore opposite a tower stands In ruins, with a mourning-robe of moss | Hung on the gray and shattered walls, which fling A shadow on the waters; it comes o'er The waves, all bright with sunshine, like the gloom the heart's young gladness.

Adversity throws on

I saw the river on a summer-eve: The sun was setting over fields of corn,'Twas like a golden sea ;—and on the left Were vineyards, whence the grapes shone forth like gems,

Rubies, and lighted amber; and thence spread
A wide heath covered with thick furze, whose
flowers,

So bright,are like the pleasures of this world,
Beautiful in the distance, but, once gained,
Little worth, piercing through the thorns
which grow

Around them ever. Wilder and more steep
The banks upon the river's other side:
Tall pines rose up like warriors; the wild

rose

Was there in all its luxury of bloom,
Sown by the wind, nursed by the dew and

sun:

And on the steeps were crosses gray and old,
Which told the fate of some poor traveller.
The dells were filled with dwarfed oaks and

firs;

And on the heights, which mastered all the
rest,

Were castles, tenanted now by the owl,
The spider's garrison: there is not one
Without some strange old legend of the days
When love was life and death,-when lady's
glove

Or sunny curl were banners of the battle.—
My history is of the tower which looks
Upon the little island.

Lord HERBERT sat him in his hall: the hearth

Was blazing as it mocked the storm without

With its red cheerfulness: the dark hounds | Its very loveliest, when the fresh air

And gallant is the bearing of his ranks.
But where is he who said that he would ride
At his right hand to battle? — ROLAND!
where-

This gallant ROLAND! I could deem him all
A man must honour and a woman love!"
"Lady! I pray thee not recall those words,
For I am ROLAND!" From his face he threw Oh! where is ROLAND?
The hood and pilgrim's cloak,-—and a young

ISABELLE has watched

Day after day, night after night, in vain,
Till she has wept in hopelessness,and thought

They loved; they were beloved. Oh, Upon old histories, and said with them,

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