That never from that most melodious bird,
Singing a love-song to his brooding mate,
Did Thracian shepherd by the grave
Of Orpheus hear a sweeter melody,
Though there the Spirit of the Sepulchre
All his own power infuse, to swell
The incense that he loves.
THE APPARITION OF YEDILLIAN.
Oн happy sire, and happy daughter!
Ye on the banks of that celestial water
Your resting-place and sanctuary have found.
What! hath not, then, their mortal taint defiled
The sacred, solitary ground?
Vain thought! the Holy Valley smiled
Receiving such a sire and child;
Ganges, who seem'd asleep to lie,
Beheld them with benignant eye,
And rippled round melodiously,
And roll'd her little wayes to meet
And welcome their beloved feet.
The gales of Swerga thither fled,
And heavenly odours there were shed
About, below, and overhead;
And earth, rejoicing in their tread,
Hath built them up a blooming bower,
Where every amaranthine flower
Its deathless blossom interweaves
With bright and undecaying leaves.
Three happy beings are there here,
The sire, the maid, the Glendoveer;
A fourth approaches: who is this
That enters in the Bower of Bliss?
No form so fair might painter find
Among the daughters of mankind;
For death her beauties hath refined,
And unto her a form hath given
Framed of the elements of Heaven;
Pure dwelling-place for perfect mind.
She stood and gazed on sire and child;
Her tongue not yet hath power to speak,
The tears were streaming down her cheek;
And when those tears her sight beguiled,
And still her faltering accents fail'd,
The spirit, mute and motionless,
Spread out her arms for the caress,
Made still and silent with excess
Of love and painful happiness.
The maid that lovely form survey'd;
Wistful she gazed, and knew her not;
But nature to her heart convey'd
A sudden thrill, a startling thought,
A feeling many a year forgot,
Now like a dream anew recurring,
As if again in every vein
Her mother's milk was stirring.
With straining neck and earnest eye
She stretch'd her hands imploringly,
As if she fain would have her nigh,
Yet fear'd to meet the wish'd embrace,
At once with love and awe oppressed.
Not so Ladurlad; he could trace,
Though brighten'd with angelic grace,
His own Yedillian's earthly face;
He ran and held her to his breast!
Oh joy above all joys of Heaven,
By death alone to others given,
This moment hath to him restored
The early-lost, the long-deplored..
They sin who tell us Love can die.
With life all other passions fly,
All others are but vanity.
In Heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell;
Earthly these passions of the earth,
They perish where they have their birth;
But love is indestructible.
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From Heaven it came, to Heaven returneth;
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times oppress'd,
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath in Heaven its perfect rest;
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of wo, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight?
Он reader! hast thou ever stood to see
The holly-tree?
The eye that contemplates it well perceives
Its glossy leaves
Order'd by an intelligence so wise,
As might confound the atheist's sophistries.
Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen
Wrinkled and keen;
No grazing cattle through their prickly round
Can reach to wound;
But as they grow where nothing is to fear,
Smooth and unarm'd the pointless leaves appear.
I love to view these things with curious eyes,
And moralize :
And in this wisdom of the holly-tree
Wherewith, perchance, to make a pleasant rhyme, One which may profit in the after-time.
Thus, though abroad perchance I might appear
Harsh and austere
To those who on my leisure would intrude
Reserved and rude,
Gentle at home amid my friends I'd be,
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know,
Some harshness show,
All vain asperities I, day by day,
Would wear away,
Till the smooth temper of my age should be
Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree.
And, as when all the summer-trees are seen
So bright and green,
The holly leaves their fadeless hues display
Less bright than they;
But when the bare and wintry woods we see,
What then so cheerful as the holly-tree?
So serious should my youth appear among
The thoughtless throng,
So would I seem amid the young and gay
More grave than they,
That in my age as cheerful I might be
As the green winter of the holly-tree.
LETITIA ELIZABETH LANDON.
LITTLE RED RIDING HOOD.
COME back, come back together,
All ye fancies of the past, Ye days of April weather, Ye shadows that are cast
By the haunted hours before!
Come back, come back, my childhood;
Thou art summon'd by a spell
From the green leaves of the wild wood,
From beside the charmed well!
For Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.
The fields were cover'd over
With colours as she went;
Daisy, buttercup, and clover,
Below her footsteps bent.
Summer shed its shining store,
She was happy as she press'd them
Beneath her little feet;
She pluck'd them and caress'd them;
They were so very sweet,
They had never seem'd so sweet before,
To Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore.
How the heart of childhood dances
Upon a sunny day!
It has its own romances,
And a wide, wide world have they!
A world where phantasie is king,
Made all of eager dreaming,
When once grown up and tall;
Now is the time for scheming,
Then we shall do them all!
Do such pleasant fancies spring
For Red Riding Hood, the darling,
The flower of fairy lore?
She seems like an ideal love,
The poetry of childhood shown,
And yet loved with a real love,
As if she were our own;
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