Page images
PDF
EPUB

260

SLUMBER LIE SOFT ON THY BEAUTIFUL EYE!

Where the sighing of flowers and the nightingale's song

Fling sweets on the wave, as it wanders along!—
Blest be the dream that restores them to thee,

But thou art the bird and the roses to me!

And now, as I watch o'er thy slumbers, alone,
And hear thy soft breathing, and know thee mine own,
And muse on the wishes that grew in that vale,

And the fancies we shaped from the river's low tale,

I blame not the fate which has taken the rest,

Since it left, to my bosom, its dearest and best!

Slumber lie soft on thy beautiful eye!

Love be a rainbow, to brighten thy sky!

Oh! not for sunshine and hope, would I part

With the shade time has flung over all-but thy heart!

Still art thou all which thou wert, when a child,

Only more holy-and only less wild!

THAT SONG, AGAIN!

[ocr errors]

Chacun croit retrouver, dans la mélodie, comme dans l'astre pur et tranquille de la nuit, l'image de ce qu'il souhaite sur la terre. Le malheur, dans le langage de la musique, est sans amertume, déchirement, sans irritation.

sans

MADAME DE STAEL.

THAT Song again!-its wailing strain

Brings back the thoughts of other hours,―
The forms I ne'er may see again,—

And brightens all life's faded flowers!

262

THAT SONG, AGAIN!

In mournful murmurs, o'er mine ear
Remembered echos seem to roll,

And sounds I never more can hear,
Make music in my lonely soul!

That swell again!-now, full and high,
The tide of feeling flows along,

And many a thought that claims a sigh
Seems mingling with thy magic song!

The forms I loved-and loved in vain,
The hopes I nursed-to see them die,
With fleeting brightness, through my brain,

In phantom beauty, wander by!

Then touch the lyre, my own dear love!—
My soul is like a troubled sea,

And turns from all below-above,

In fondness, to the harp and thee!

SERENADE.

OH! COME AT THIS HOUR, LOVE!-THE DAYLIGHT IS GONE.

Oh! come at this hour, love!--the daylight is gone,
And the heavens weep dew on the flowers;

And the spirit of loneliness steals, with a moan,
Through the shade of the eglantine bowers :-

For, the moon is asleep on her pillow of clouds,
And her curtain is drawn in the sky;

And the gale, as it wantons along the young buds,
Falls faint on the ear-
r-like a sigh!

[blocks in formation]

The summer-day sun is too gaudy and bright

For a heart that has suffered like mine;

And methinks, there were pain, in the noon of its light, To a spirit so broken as thine!—

The birds-as they mingled their music of joy,

And the roses that smiled in the beam,

Would but tell us of feelings for ever gone by,

And of hopes that have passed like a dream!

And the moonlight-pale spirit !—would speak of the

time

When we wandered beneath its soft gleam,

Along the green meadows, when life was in prime,

And worshipped its face in the stream ;

When our hopes were as sweet, and our life-path as

bright,

And as cloudless, to fancy's young eye,

As the star-spangled course of that phantom of light,

Along the blue depths of the sky!

« PreviousContinue »