Love of mine, O, press me nearer!
Let mine eyes thy love-look mirror,
Let me feel thy heart's low beating,
Fondly echoing mine own;
Give my heart the blest assurance
That my dreaming soul's endurance
Was a phantom of the midnight,
From the holy morning flown,
Let thy murmur'd blessings tell me
Thou art mine, and mine alone.
Coldly streams the moonbeam o'er me,
And a new-made grave before me
Lay in loneliness and silence,
With its wither'd flow'rets spread,
And a myrtle wreath was braided
Round the willow shrunk and faded,
That with melancholy motion
Waved above the grassy bed,
Like a solemn priest at midnight
Swinging censers o'er the dead
Then methought that, fair and beaming,
Thou didst come in radiant seeming,
From the shadowy groups of cypress
That around the churchyard grew.
But another's arm was round thee,
And another's love had bound thee,
And to him who loved thee truly,
Was thy love no longer true,
Then I felt my heart was breaking
As to me ye nearer drew.
Clasp me closer, loved and dearest,
'Tis a dream that now thou hearest,
Yet
my heart with fear is trembling,
As its memory I recall.
Though thine eyes are on me shining,
Though thine arms my neck are twining,
And thy murmur'd words of blessing,
On my heart like music fall,
Yet the memory of that vision
Shrouds me like an icy pall.
Thou and he whose arm upheld thee,
Thou and he whose love had spell'd thee,
Stood together in the moonlight
That reveal'd my marble breast,
And with lips that falter'd never,
Thou didst swear to love for ever.
Him who stood in pride beside thee,
With his arms around thee prest,
While beneath, all cold and silent,
Lay the one who loved thee best.
Love of mine, this dream of terror,
God be thanked, is nought but error,
Yet its memory oft hath darken'd
Like a cloud my sunny heart.
For its phantom thoughts betoken,
How that heart, all crush'd and broken,
Would be like that marble tombstone,
Should thy gentle love depart,
And the cypress round my myrtle
From the grave of hope would start.
By LONGFELLOW, the American poet.
O, WITH what glory comes and goes the year!-
The buds of spring-those beautiful harbingers
Of sunny skies and cloudless times-enjoy
Life's newness, and earth's garniture spread out;
And when the silver habit of the clouds
Comes down upon the Autumn sun, and with
A sober gladness the old year takes up
His bright inheritance of golden fruits,
pomp and pageant fill the splendid scene. There is a beautiful spirit breathing now Its mellow richness on the cluster'd trees, And, from a beaker full of richest dyes, Pouring new glory on the autumn woods, And dipping in warm light the pillar'd clouds. Morn, on the mountain, like a summer bird, Lifts up her purple wing; and in the vales The gentle wind-a sweet and passionate wooer
Kisses the blushing leaf, and stirs up life
Within the solemn woods of ash deep crimsoned,
And silver beech, and maple yellow-leaved,―
Where Autumn, like a faint old man, sits down
By the way-side a-weary. Through the trees
The golden robin moves; the purple finch,
That on wild cherry and red cedar feeds,-
A winter bird,-comes with its plaintive whistle,
And pecks by the witch-hazel; whilst aloud
From cottage roofs the warbling blue-bird sings;
And merrily, with oft-repeated stroke,
Sounds from the threshing-floor the busy flail.
O, what a glory doth this world put on
For him who, with a fervent heart, goes forth
Under the bright and glorious sky, and looks
On duties well perform'd, and days well spent!
For him the wind, ay, and the yellow leaves,
Shall have a voice, and give him eloquent teachings.
He shall so hear the solemn hymn that Death
Has lifted up for all, that he shall go
To his long resting-place without a tear.
THE RECOLLECTION.
By SHELLEY.
WE wander'd to the pine forest
That skirts the ocean foam,
The lightest wind was in its nest,
The tempest in its home.
The whispering waves were half asleep,
The clouds were gone to play,
And on the bosom of the deep,
The smile of heaven lay;
It seem'd as if the hour were one
Sent from beyond the skies,
Which scatter'd from above the sun
A light of Paradise.
We paused amid the pines that stood
The giants of the waste,
Tortured by storms to shapes as rude
As serpents interlaced.
And soothed by every azure breath,
That under heaven is blown,
To harmonies and hues beneath,
As tender as its own;
Now all the tree tops lay asleep,
Like green waves on the sea,
As still as in the silent deep
The ocean woods may be.
How calm it was!-the silence there
By such a chain was bound,
That even the busy wood-pecker
Made stiller by her sound
The inviolable quietness ;
The breath of peace we drew
With its soft motion made not less
The calm that round us grew.
There seem'd, from the remotest seat
Of the wide mountain waste
To the soft flower beneath our feet,
A magic circle traced,
A spirit interfused around
A thrilling silent life,
To momentary peace it bound
Our mortal nature's strife ;
And still I felt the centre of
The magic circle there
Was one fair form, that fill'd with love
The lifeless atmosphere.
We paused beside the pools that lie
Under the forest bough,
Each seem'd as 'twere a little sky
Gulf'd in a world below;
A firmament of purple light,
Which in the dark earth lay,
More boundless than the depth of night,
And purer than the day-
In which the lovely forests grew,
As in the upper air,
More perfect both in shape and hue
Than any spreading there.
There lay the glade and neighbouring lawn,
And through the dark green wood
The white sun twinkling like the dawn
Out of a speckled cloud.
Sweet views, which in our world above
Can never well be seen,
Were imaged by the water's love
Of that fair forest green.
And all was interfused beneath
With an Elysian glow,
An atmosphere without a breath,
A softer day below.
Like one beloved, the scene had lent
To the dark water's breast
Its every leaf and lineament
With more than truth exprest,
Until an envious wind crept by,
Like an unwelcome thought,
Which from the mind's too faithful eye
Blots one dear image out.
A sweet lyric by THOMAS DAVIS, Ireland's latest poet,-taken from her by a premature death.
THE summer brook flows in the bed
The winter torrent tore asunder;
The sky-lark's gentle wings are spread
Where walk the lightning and the thunder:
And thus you'll find the sternest soul
The gayest tenderness concealing,
And minds, that seem to mock control,
Are order'd by some fairy feeling.
Then, maiden! start not from the hand
That's hardened by the swaying sabre—
The pulse beneath may be as bland
As evening after day of labour:
And, maiden! start not from the brow
That thought has knit, and passion darken'd
In twilight hours, 'neath forest bough,
The tenderest tales are often hearken'd.
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