She talked of politics or prayers, Of Southey's prose or Wordsworth's sonnets, Of danglers or of dancing bears, Of battles or the last new bonnets; By candlelight, at twelve o'clock To me it mattered not a tittle If those bright lips had quoted Locke, I might have thought they murmured Little. Through sunny May, through sultry June, I loved her with a love eternal; I spoke her praises to the moon, I wrote them to the Sunday Journal. My mother laughed; I soon found out That ancient ladies have no feeling : My father frowned; but how should gout See any happiness in kneeling? ---- She was the daughter of a dean, As Baron Rothschild for the muses. WHOM first we love, you know, we seldom wed. Much must be borne which it is hard to bear; My little boy begins to babble now But when he sleeps and smiles upon my knee, Who might have been-ah, what I dare not think! TRANSIENT BEAUTY. FROM "THE GIAOUR." As, rising on its purple wing, The insect-queen of Eastern spring, O'er emerald meadows of Kashmeer, Invites the young pursuer near, And leads him on from flower to flower, A weary chase and wasted hour, Then leaves him, as it soars on high, With panting heart and tearful eye; So Beauty lures the full-grown child, With hue as bright, and wing as wild; A chase of idle hopes and fears, Begun in folly, closed in tears. If won, to equal ills betrayed, Woe waits the insect and the maid: A life of pain, the loss of peace, From infant's play and man's caprice; The lovely toy, so fiercely sought, Hath lost its charm by being caught; For every touch that wooed its stay Hath brushed its brighest hues away, Till, charm and hue and beauty gone, "T is left to fly or fall alone. With wounded wing or bleeding breast, Ah! where shall either victim rest? Where, through groves deep and high Sounds the far billow, Where early violets die Under the willow. Eleu loro Soft shall be his pillow. There, through the summer day, Cool streams are laving: There, while the tempests sway, Scarce are boughs waving; There thy rest shalt thou take, Parted forever, Never again to wake Never, O never! Eleu loro Never, O never! Where shall the traitor rest, He, the deceiver, Who could win maiden's breast, Borne down by the flying, There shall he be lying. Her wing shall the eagle flap O'er the false-hearted; His warm blood the wolf shall lap Ere life be parted: Shame and dishonor sit By his grave ever ; Eleu loro SIR WALTER SCOTT. LADY ANN BOTHWELL'S LAMENT. A SCOTTISH SONG. BALOW, my babe, ly stil and sleipe! Balow, my babe, ly stil and sleipe! |