The which I could not love the less So lovely was the loneliness Of a wild lake, with black rock bound, And the tall pines that towered around. But when the Night had thrown her pall Then-ah then I would awake To the terror of the lone lake. Yet that terror was not fright, But a tremulous delight— A feeling not the jewelled mine Could teach or bribe me to define Nor Love-although the Love were thine. Death was in that poisonous wave, And in its gulf a fitting grave. For him who thence could solace bring To his lone imagining Whose solitary soul could make An Eden of that dim lake. SONG. SAW thee on thy bridal day— When a burning blush came o'er thee, Though happiness around thee lay, The world all love before thee: And in thine eye a kindling light (Whatever it might be) Was all on Earth my aching sight Of Loveliness could see. That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame As such it well may pass Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame In the breast of him, alas! Who saw thee on that bridal day, When that deep blush would come o'er thee, Though happiness around thee lay, The world all love before thee. TO M. L. S 米 F all who hail thy presence as the morning- The blotting utterly from out high heaven thee Hourly for hope-for life-ah! above all, For the resurrection of deep-buried faith Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!” At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes— Of all who owe thee most-whose gratitude Nearest resembles worship-oh, remember The truest—the most fervently devoted, And think that these weak lines are written by him By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think His spirit is communing with an angel's. ELEN, thy beauty is to me Like those Nicéan barks of yore That gently, o'er a perfumed sea, On desperate seas long wont to roam, |