Then Jacqueline the silence broke. While D'Arcy as before looked on, "His praises from your lips I heard, Till my fond heart was won; And, if in aught his Sire has erred, She, whom in joy, in grief you nursed; On her you thought-but to be kind! Two kneeling at your feet behold; One-one how young ;-nor yet the other old. Oh spurn them not-nor look so cold If Jacqueline be cast away, Her bridal be her dying day. -Well, well might she believe in you! He shook his aged locks of snow; And twice he turned, and rose to go. If tears and smiles at length together came? "Oh no-begone! I'll hear no more." But, as he spoke, his voice relented. "That very look thy mother wore When she implored, and old Le Roc consented. -Nor canst thou, D'Arcy, feel resentment long; And that dear Saint-may she once more descend But now, in my hands, your's with her's unite. A father's blessing on your heads alight! All hearts shall sing Adieu to sorrow!' St. Pierre has found his child to-day; And old and young shall dance to-morrow." Had Louis* then before the gate dismounted, Like Henry when he heard recounted † *Louis the Fourteenth. + Alluding to a popular story related of Henry the Fourth of France; similar to ours of "The King and Miller of Mansfield.” (What time the miller's maid Colette Sung, while he supped, her chansonnette) Then when St. Pierre addressed his village-train, Then had the monarch with a sigh confessed A joy by him unsought and unpossessed, -Without it what are all the rest? To love, and to be loved again. ODE TO SUPERSTITION.* I. 1. HENCE, to the realms of Night, dire Demon, hence! Thy chain of adamant can bind That little world, the human mind, And sink its noblest powers to impotence. Wake the lion's loudest roar, Clot his shaggy mane with gore, With flashing fury bid his eye-balls shine; Thy touch, thy deadening touch has steeled the breast, At thy command he plants the dagger deep, At thy command exults, tho' Nature bids him weep! * Written in 1785. The sacrifice of Iphigenia. I. 2. When, with a frown that froze the peopled earth,* Thou dartedst thy huge head from high, Night waved her banners o'er the sky, And, brooding, gave her shapeless shadows birth. Rocking on the billowy air, Ha! what withering phantoms glare! As blows the blast with many a sudden swell, At each dead pause, what shrill-toned voices yell! The sheeted spectre, rising from the tomb, Points to the murderer's stab, and shudders by; In every grove is felt a heavier gloom, That veils its genius from the vulgar eye: The spirit of the water rides the storm, And, thro' the mist, reveals the terrors of his form. I. 3. O'er solid seas, where Winter reigns, * Lucretius, I. 63. |