ΤΟ

THOMAS MOORE.

THE VOICE.

It came o'er her sleep, like a voice of those days,
When love, only love, was the light of her ways;
And, soft as in moments of bliss long ago,
It whisper'd her name from the garden below.

"Alas," sigh'd the maiden, "how fancy can cheat!

"The world once had lips that could whisper thus

sweet;

"But cold now they slumber in yon fatal deep, Where, oh that beside them this heart too could sleep!"

She sunk on her pillow-but no, 'twas in vain
To chase the illusion, that Voice came again!
She flew to the casement-but, hush'd as the grave,
In moonlight lay slumbering woodland and wave.

Oh sleep, come and shield me," in anguish she said, "From that call of the buried, that cry of the Dead!"

And sleep came around her-but, starting, she woke,

For still from the garden that spirit Voice spoke!

"I come," she exclaim'd, "be thy home where it may, On earth or in heaven, that call I obey;" Then forth through the moonlight, with heart beating fast

And loud as a death-watch, the pale maiden past.

Still round her the scene all in loneliness shone; And still, in the distance, that Voice led her on; But whither she wander'd, by wave or by shore, None ever could tell, for she came back no more.