Then, thro' the scanty orchard stealing,
The clustering boughs her track concealing,
She flies, nor casts a thought behind,

But gives her terrors to the wind;
Flies from her home, the humble sphere

Of all her joys and sorrows here,
Her father's house of mountain-stone,
And by a mountain-vine o'ergrown.

At such an hour in such a night,
So calm, so clear, so heavenly bright,
Who would have seen, and not confessed

It looked as all within were blest?
What will not woman, when she loves?
Yet lost, alas, who can restore her?-
She lifts the latch, the wicket moves;
And now the world is all before her.

Up rose St. Pierre, when morning shone ;
-And Jacqueline, his child, was gone!
Oh what the madd'ning thought that came?
Dishonour coupled with his name!

By Condé at Rocroy he stood;

By Turenne, when the Rhine ran blood.
Two banners of Castile he gave

Aloft in Notre Dame to wave;

Nor did thy cross, St. Louis, rest

Upon a purer, nobler breast.

He slung his old sword by his side,

And snatched his staff and rushed to save;

Then sunk-and on his threshold cried,

"Oh lay me in my grave!

-Constance! Claudine! where were ye then?

But stand not there. Away! away!

Thou, Frederic, by thy father stay.
Though old, and now forgot of men,
Both must not leave him in a day."
Then, and he shook his hoary head,

His songs she sung and sung again,
Till the last light withdrew.

Every day, and all day long,

He mused or slumbered to a song.
But she is dead to him, to all!
Her lute hangs silent on the wall;
And on the stairs, and at the door,
Her fairy-step is heard no more!
At every meal an empty chair
Tells him that she is not there;

She, who would lead him where he went,
Charm with her converse while he leant;
Or, hovering, every wish prevent;
At eve light up the chimney-nook,
Lay there his glass within his book;

And that small chest of curious mould,

(Queen Mab's, perchance, in days of old,)

Tusk of elephant and gold;

Which, when a tale is long, dispenses

Its fragrant dust to drowsy senses.

In her who mourned not, when they missed her,

The old a child, the young a sister?

No more the orphan runs to take
From her loved hand the barley-cake.
No more the matron in the school
Expects her in the hour of rule,
To sit amid the elfin brood,
Praising the busy and the good.

The widow trims her hearth in vain:

She comes not-nor will come again.

Not now, his little lesson done,

With Frederic blowing bubbles in the sun;

Nor spinning by the fountain-side,

(Some story of the days of old,

Barbe Bleue or Chaperon Rouge half-told

To him who would not be denied ;)

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