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O, leave me not in this eternal woe,
For if thou diest, my love, I know not where to go."

XXXVI,

Beyond a mortal man impassioned far
At these voluptuous accents, he arose,
Ethereal, flushed, and like a throbbing star
Seen mid the sapphire heaven's deep repose;
Into her dream he melted, as the rose
Blendeth its odor with the violet, -
Solution sweet; meantime the frost-wind blows
Like love's alarum pattering the sharp sleet
Against the window-panes; St. Agnes' moon hath

set.

XXXVII.

'Tis dark; quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet; "This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!" 'T is dark; the iced gusts still rave and beat : "No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine! Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine. Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring? I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine, Though thou forsakest a deceived thing; A dove forlorn and lost, with sick, unpruned wing."

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MARRIAGE.

THOU HAST SWORN BY THY GOD, MY | Sprinkled with pearl, and pearling flowers atween,

JEANIE.

THOг hast sworn by thy God, my Jeanie,
By that pretty white hand o' thine,
And by a' the lowing stars in heaven,

That thou wad aye be mine!

And I hae sworn by my God, my Jeanie,
And by that kind heart o' thine,
By a' the stars sown thick owre heaven,
That thou shalt aye be mine?

Then foul fa' the hands that wad loose sic bands,
And the heart that wad part sic luve !
But there's nae hand can loose my band,
But the finger o' Him abuve.

Though the wee, wee cot maun be my bield,
And my claithing ne'er sae mean,

I wad lap me up rich i' the faulds o' luve, —
Heaven's armfu' o' my Jean.

Her white arm wad be a pillow for me,

Fu' safter than the down;

Do like a golden mantle her attire ;
And being crowned with a garland green,
Seem like some maiden queen.

Her modest eyes, abashed to behold
So many gazers as on her do stare,
Upon the lowly ground affixéd are;
Ne dare lift up her countenance too bold,
But blush to hear her praises sung so loud,
So far from being proud.

Nathless do ye still loud her praises sing,
That all the woods may answer, and your echo ring.
Tell me, ye merchants' daughters, did ye see
So fair a creature in your town before?
So sweet, so lovely, and so mild as she,
Adorned with Beauty's grace and Virtue's store?
Her goodly eyes like sapphires, shining bright
Her forehead ivory white,

Her cheeks like apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips like cherries charming men to bite,
Her breast like to a bowl of cream uncrudded,
Her paps like lilies budded,

And Luve wad winnow owre us his kind, kind Her snowy neck like to a marble tower;

wings,

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And all her body like a palace fair,
Ascending up with many a stately stair

To Honor's seat and Chastity's sweet bower.
Why stand ye still, ye virgins, in amaze,
Upon her so to gaze,

Whilst ye forget your former lay to sing,

To which the woods did answer, and your echo ring.

LOVE.

EDMUND SPENSER.

THERE are who say the lover's heart

Is in the loved one's merged;

O, never by love's own warm art
So cold a plea was urged!

No!-hearts that love hath crowned or crossed,

Love fondly knits together;

But not a thought or hue is lost

That made a part of either.

It is an ill-told tale that tells

Of "hearts by love made one";
He grows who near another's dwells
More conscious of his own;

In each spring up new thoughts and powers
That, mid love's warm, clear weather,
Together tend like climbing flowers,
And, turning, grow together.

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MINE eyes he closed, but open left the cell
Of fancy, my internal sight, by which
Abstract, as in a trance, methought I saw,
Though sleeping, where I lay, and saw the shape
Still glorious before whom awake I stood;
Who, stooping, opened my left side, and took
From thence a rib, with cordial spirits warm,
And life-blood streaming fresh; wide was the
wound,

But suddenly with flesh filled up and healed:
The rib he formed and fashioned with his hands;
Under his forming hands a creature grew,
Manlike, but different sex, so lovely fair,
That what seemed fair in all the world seemed

now

Mean, or in her summed up, in her contained
And in her looks, which from that time infused
Sweetness into my heart, unfelt before,
And into all things from her air inspired
The spirit of love and amorous delight.
She disappeared, and left me dark; I waked
To find her, or forever to deplore
Her loss, and other pleasures all abjure:
When out of hope, behold her, not far off,
Such as I saw her in my dream, adorned
With what all earth or Heaven could bestow
To make her amiable. On she came,
Led by her heavenly Maker, though unseen,
And guided by his voice, nor uninformed
Of nuptial sanctity and marriage rites:
Grace was in all her steps, Heaven in her eye,
In every gesture dignity and love.
I, overjoyed, could not forbear aloud :
"This turn hath made amends; thou hast

fulfilled

Thy words, Creator bounteous and benign,

Giver of all things fair, but fairest this
Of all thy gifts, nor enviest. I now see
Bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, myself
Before me; Woman is her name, of man
Extracted for this cause he shall forego
Father and mother, and to his wife adhere;
And they shall be one flesh, one heart, one soul.'
She heard me thus, and though divinely

brought,

Yet innocence and virgin modesty,

Her virtue and the conscience of her worth,
That would be wooed, and not unsought be

won,

Not obvious, not obtrusive, but retired,
The more desirable; or, to say all,
Nature herself, though pure of sinful thought,
Wrought in her so, that, seeing me, she turned :
I followed her; she what was honor knew,
And with obsequious majesty approved
My pleaded reason. To the nuptial bower
I led her blushing like the morn: all Heaven,
And happy constellations on that hour
Shed their selectest influence; the earth
Gave sign of gratulation, and each hill;
Joyous the birds; fresh gales and gentle airs
Whispered it to the woods, and from their
wings

Flung rose, flung odors from the spicy shrub,
Disporting, till the amorous bird of night
Sung spousal, and bid haste the evening star
On his hill-top, to light the bridal lamp.

When I approach

Her loveliness, so absolute she seems,
And in herself complete, so well to know
Her own, that what she wills to do or say
Seems wisest, virtuousest, discreetest, best;
All higher knowledge in her presence falls
Degraded, wisdom in discourse with her
Loses discountenanced, and like folly shows;
Authority and reason on her wait,
As one intended first, not after made
Occasionally; and, to consummate all,
Greatness of mind and nobleness their seat
Build in her loveliest, and create an awe
About her, as a guard angelic placed.”

Neither her outside formed so fair, nor aught In procreation common to all kinds,

So much delights me, as those graceful acts,
Those thousand decencies that daily flow
From all her words and actions, mixed with love
And sweet compliance, which declare unfeigned
Union of mind, or in us both one soul;
Harmony to behold in wedded pair

More grateful than harmonious sound to the ear.

MILTON.

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She was gentler and shyer

Than the light fawn which stood by her,
And her eyes emit a fire

Soft and tender as her soul;

Love's dewy light doth drown her,

And the braided locks that crown her
Than autumn's trees are browner,

When the golden shadows roll

Along Glengariff's sea;

And crowds in many a galley
To the happy marriage rally

Of the maiden of the valley
And the youth of Céim-an-eich;

Old eyes with joy are weeping, as all ask on bended knee,

A blessing, gentle Alice, upon thee.

DENIS FLORENCE MACCARTHY.

TO A LADY BEFORE MARRIAGE.

O, FORMED by Nature, and refined by Art,
With charms to win, and sense to fix the heart!
By thousands sought, Clotilda, canst thou free
Thy crowd of captives and descend to me?
Content in shades obscure to waste thy life,
A hidden beauty and a country wife ?
O, listen while thy summers are my theme!
Ah! soothe thy partner in his waking dream!
In some small hamlet on the lonely plain,
Where Thames through meadows rolls his mazy

train,

Or where high Windsor, thick with greens arrayed, Through the forests in the evening, when cathe- Waves his old oaks, and spreads his ample shade,

dral turrets toll,

And the purple sun advanceth to its goal.

III.

Her cottage was a dwelling
All regal homes excelling,
But, ah! beyond the telling
Was the beauty round it spread,

The wave and sunshine playing,
Like sisters each arraying,

Far down the sea-plants swaying

Upon their coral bed,

And languid as the tresses on a sleeping maiden's head,

When the summer breeze is dead.

IV.

Need we say that Maurice loved her,
And that no blush reproved her,
When her throbbing bosom moved her
To give the heart she gave?

That by dawn-light and by twilight,
And, O blessed moon, by thy light,
When the twinkling stars on high light

The wanderer o'er the wave,

Fancy has figured out our calm retreat;
Already round the visionary seat

Our limes begin to shoot, our flowers to spring,
The brooks to murmur, and the birds to sing.
Where dost thou lie, thou thinly peopled green,
Thou nameless lawn, and village yet unseen,
Where sons, contented with their native ground,
Ne'er travelled further than ten furlongs round,
And the tanned peasant and his ruddy bride
Were born together, and together died,
Where early larks best tell the morning light,
And only Philomel disturbs the night?
Midst gardens here my humble pile shall rise,
With sweets surrounded of ten thousand dyes;
All savage where th' embroidered gardens end,
The haunt of echoes, shall my woods ascend;
And oh! if Heaven th' ambitious thought approve,
A rill shall warble 'cross the gloomy grove,
A little rill, o'er pebbly beds conveyed,
Gush down the steep, and glitter through the glade.
What cheering scents these bordering banks exhale!
How loud that heifer lows from yonder vale!
That thrush how shrill! his note so clear, so high,
He drowns each feathered minstrel of the sky.

His steps unconscious led him where Glengariff's Here let me trace beneath the purpled morn

waters lave

Each mossy bank and cave.

V.

The sun his gold is flinging,
The happy birds are singing,
And bells are gayly ringing

The deep-mouthed beagle and the sprightly horn,
Or lure the trout with well-dissembled flies,
Or fetch the fluttering partridge from the skies.
Nor shall thy hand disdain to crop the vine,
The downy peach, or flavored nectarine;
Or rob the beehive of its golden hoard,
And bear th' unbought luxuriance to thy board

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