Like sweet thoughts in a dream ;
The nightingale's complaint,
It dies upon her heart,
As I must die on thine,
O beloved as thou art !

O lift me from the grass !
I die, I faint, I fail !
Let thy love in kisses rain
On my lips and eyelids pale.
My cheek is cold and white, alas !
My heart beats loud and fast,
Oh! press it close to thine again,
Where it will break at last.

A BRIDAL SONG.

THE golden gates of sleep unbar

Where strength and beauty, met together, Kindle their image like a star

In a sea of glassy weather!
Night, with all thy stars look down,-

Darkness, weep thy holiest dew,-
Never smiled the inconstant moon

On a pair so true.
Let eyes not see their own delight;
Haste, swift Hour, and thy flight

Oft renew.

Fairies, sprites, and angels, keep her!

Holy stars, permit no wrong!
And return to wake the sleeper,

Dawn,-ere it be long.
O joy! O fear! what will be done
In the absence of the sun !

Come along!

TO

WHEN passion's trance is overpast,
If tenderness and truth could last
Or live, whilst all wild feelings keep
Some mortal slumber, dark and deep,
I should not weep, I should not weep!

It were enough to feel, to see
Thy soft eyes gazing tenderly,
And dream the rest and burn and be
The secret food of fires unseen,
Couldst thou but be as thou hast been.

After the slumber of the year
The woodland violets re-appear;
All things revive in field or grove,
And sky and sea; but two, which move,
And for all others, life and love.

208

GOOD-NIGHT.

GOOD-NIGHT? ah!

no
0;

the hour is ill Which severs those it should unite ; Let us remain together still,

Then it will be good night.

How can I call the lone night good,

Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight ? Be it not said, thought, understood,

That it will be good night.

To hearts which near each other inove

From evening close to morning light, The night is good; because, my love,

They never say good-night.

MUSIC.

I PANT for the music which is divine,

My heart in its thirst is a dying flower ; Pour forth the sound like enchanted wine,

Loosen the notes in a silver shower; Like a herbless plain for the gentle rain, I gasp, I faint, till they wake again.

Let me drink of the spirit of that sweet sound,

More, O more !I am thirsting yet,

It loosens the serpent which care has bound

Upon my heart, to stifle it;
The dissolving strain, through every vein,
Passes into my heart and brain.

As the scent of a violet withered up,

Which grew by the brink of a silver lake, When the hot noon has drained its dewy cup,

And mist there was none its thirst to slakeAnd the violet lay dead while the odour flew On the wings of the wind o'er the waters blue

As one who drinks from a charmed

cup Of foaming, and sparkling, and murmuring wine, Whom, a mighty Enchantress filling up,

Invites to love with her kiss divine.

DIRGE FOR THE YEAR.

ORPHAN hours, the year is dead,

Come and sigh, come and weep!
Merry hours, smile instead,

For the year is but asleep :
See, it smiles as it is sleeping,
Mocking your untimely weeping.

14

VOL. III.

As an earthquake rocks a corse

In its coffin in the clay,
So White Winter, that rough nurse,

Rocks the dead-cold year to-day ;
Solemn hours ! wail aloud
For
your

mother in her shroud.

a

As the wild air stirs and sways

The tree-swung cradle of a child,
So the breath of these rude days

Rocks the year:be calm and mild,
Trembling hours ; she will arise
With new love within her eyes,

January gray is here,

Like a sexton by her grave;
February bears the bier,

March with grief doth howl and rave,
And April weeps—but, О ye hours !
Follow with May's fairest flowers.

A FRAGMENT.

They were two cousins, almost like two twins,
Except that from the catalogue of sins
Nature had razed their love-which could not be
But by dissevering their nativity.