A group of happy faces throng the hall;

And scarce hath Emma enter'd, like a flower Blushing, and beautiful, with downcast eyes, And palpitating bosom, ere her knight, Young Ethelrid, from holy wars return'd With laurels on his crest, to part no more, Kneels faithful at her feet in ecstacy,

And lifts her snowy fingers to his lips.

ELLEN, THE FORSAKEN.

-Thou to me thy thoughts

Wast wont, I mine to thee was wont to impart;
Both waking we were one; how then can now--

Paradise Lost.

BENEATH the daisied turf, without a stone,
Reposes one whose griefs were little known,
And pitied less; the woes of wounded pride
She felt too keenly, but she strove to hide;
Her cause of sorrow cared not to impart,
And kept the burthen on her lonely heart,
Till death in mercy came to her relief,
And eased her of her life and of her grief!

Not always so, yet, now and then, we find That outward shapes and shades bespeak the mind;

And hers were such; the eye that on her dwelt,
Could augur how she thought, and what she felt;
For scarcely seem'd of earth her speaking mien,
Within whose lines almost her heart was seen.
So slender was her form, so slight her foot,
That, 'neath its fairy pressure, sound was mute:
Bright, beautiful, the wreathy auburn hair
Stole on her brow, and veil'd the lilies there;
Benign intelligence, the light of truth
Calmly illumed her ivory forehead smooth,
As if its purity did say―within

Dwells not a taint of earth, a touch of sin.
On either velvet cheek the mantling glow
Seem'd a carnation blooming in the snow
While her soft eye, soft as the infant day,

When breaks through stainless clouds the blue of May,
With seraph glow, so often downwards cast

In present grief, or musing on the past,

All meek and melancholy, seem'd to tell,

Though words were not, that something was not well.

Sedate above the maidens of her age, She was not prone to trifles that engage The giddy and unthinking; yet her face Was like a sunbeam, lighting every place,

And cheering every dwelling where she came;
So every tongue rejoiced to bless her name,
And every eye that saw her hail'd the sight,
And every ear that heard her own'd delight;
She was so simple, so devoid of art,

So seraph-like in form, so pure in heart,
So mildly tender, and so gently sweet,

So chaste, the opening daisy at her feet,
When wet with dew, could scarce an emblem be
Of so much loveliness and purity!

A smile was always beaming on her face,
But through its dimples some began to trace
A fading of her colour, and the glow
Upon her cheek scarce tinged its sunless snow.
And some perceived that she loved solitude,
And did not care that any should intrude
Upon her evening path, as forth she stray'd,
To breathe the coolness of the woodland shade;

To mark the waning glories of the sky,

And doat on visions dear to memory!

What were the pensive dreams that memory brought?

And why was sorrow ever in her thought?

The gloomy silence of an April day,

Whose clouds impend, nor shower, nor shrink away.
Where was the peace that beam'd upon her brow?
She always had been cheerful-why not now?
Her simple tale it lists me to unfold,

And to disclose-what Ellen never told.

He whom she loved had left her; o'er the sea,
Far from the land of his nativity,

He was a dweller; but the vows of truth,
Repeated in his manhood, pledged in youth,
Had faded like the brilliance of the sun,

When clouds are gathering o'er, and storms come on.
Another form,-where perfume loads the air,

And man is weak, but woman 'wildering fair,—
Another form had flash'd upon his mind,

O'ercome his strength, and sear'd his reason blind;

Dried up the fountain of his former love,

And changed the heart which time was ne'er to move; Love pass'd away; did conscience whisper not? Perchance it did,-but Ellen was forgot,

Alas! how time, and absence, and mankind, Impart their colours, and corrupt the mind!