LOVE AND FOLLY. (FROM LA FONTAINE.) LOVE's worshippers alone can know A sample of its boundless lore. As once, beneath the fragrant shade Of myrtles breathing heaven's own air, The children, Love and Folly, played— A quarrel rose betwixt the pair. Love said the gods should do him rightBut Folly vowed to do it then, And struck him, o'er the orbs of sight, So hard, he never saw again. His lovely mother's grief was deep, She called for vengeance on the deed; A beauty does not vainly weep, Nor coldly does a mother plead. 128 LOVE AND FOLLY. A shade came o'er the eternal bliss That fills the dwellers of the skies; And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes. "Behold," she said, "this lovely boy," 66 While streamed afresh her graceful tears, And sunshine, all his future years. All said that Love had suffered wrong, And long the party's interest weighed. "Since Love is blind from Folly's blow, Let Folly be the guide of Love, Where'er the boy may choose to go." FATIMA AND RADUAN. (FROM THE SPANISH.) Diamante falso y fingido, Engastado en pedernal, &c. FALSE diamond set in flint! the caverns of the mine Are warmer than the breast that holds that faithless heart of thine; Thou art fickle as the sea, thou art wandering as the wind, And the restless ever-mounting flame is not more hard to bind. If the tears I shed were tongues, yet all too few would be, Thou hast called me oft the flower of all Grenada's maids, Thou hast said that by the side of me the first and fairest fades ; And they thought thy heart was mine, and it seemed to every one That what thou didst to win my love, from love of me was done. 130 FATIMA AND RADUAN. Alas! if they but knew thee, as mine it is to know, They well might see another mark to which thine arrows go; But thou giv'st me little heed-for I speak to one who knows That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes. It wearies me, mine enemy, that I must weep and bear That cruel words as surely kill as sharpest blades of steel. with pain; But, now I know thy perfidy, I shall be well again. I would proclaim thee as thou art-but every maiden knows That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes. Thus Fatima complained to the valiant Raduan, He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus his cause: Oh, lady, dry those star-like eyes-their dimness does me wrong; If my heart be made of flint, at least 'twill keep thy image long: Thou hast uttered cruel words-but I grieve the less for those, Since she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes. THE DEATH OF ALIATAR. (FROM THE SPANISH.) 'Tis not with gilded sabres That gleam in baldricks blue, All mournfully and slowly The afflicted warriors come, To the deep wail of the trumpet, And beat of muffled drum. The banner of the Phenix, The flag that loved the sky, That scarce the wind dared wanton witn Now leaves its place in battle-field, And sweeps the ground in grief The bearer drags its glorious folds Behind the fallen chief, |