effected in the play through a series of horrible calamities. The son of the count having been stolen in his infancy by a robber, is brought up in his supposed father's profession; falls in love, as unwittingly as dipus, with his sister; kills his father in a scuffle with the Bow-street officers of Poland; and finally dies in the embrace of his ghostly Ahnfrau, whom he mistakes for Bertha. The old lady, when her penance is completed, by the disasters of her descendants, which, with truly disinterested maternal love, she had vainly endea

I have taken very considerable liberties with the original plot; first, in making the guilt of the Ancestress supernatural, as believing such most likely to incur supernatural punishment; secondly, in making Jaromir cousin instead of brother, and thus avoiding the most revolting of crimes; and, thirdly, in awarding something of the character of poetical justice, as it is the count's own offence which brings down the punishment.

No. I.

O No, sweet lady, not to thee

That set and chilling tone,

By which the feelings on themselves
So utterly are thrown:

For mine has sprung upon my lips,

Impatient to express

The haunting charm of thy sweet voice And gentlest loveliness.

A very fairy queen thou art,

Whose only spells are on the heart.

The garden it has many a flower,
But only one for thee-
The early graced of Grecian song,

The fragrant myrtle tree;
For it doth speak of happy love,
The delicate, the true.

If its pearl buds are fair like thee,

They seem as fragile too;

Likeness, not omens, for love's power Will watch his own most precious flower.

Thou art not of that wilder race

Upon the mountain side,

Able like the summer sun

And winter blasts to bide: But thou art of that gentler growth, Which asks some loving eye, To keep it in sweet guardianship, Or it must droop and die; Requiring equal love and care, Even more delicate than fair.

I cannot paint to thee the charm

Which thou hast wrought on me; Thy laugh, so like the wild bird's song In the first bloom-touch'd tree.

You spoke of lovely Italy,

And of its thousand flowers;

Your lips had caught the music breath
Amid its summer bow'rs.

And can it be a form like thine
Has braved the stormy Appenine?

I'm standing now with one white rose
Where silver waters glide:

I've flung that white rose on the stream,-
How light it breasts the tide !

The clear waves seem as if they love
So beautiful a thing;

And fondly to the scented leaves

The laughing sunbeams cling.

A summer voyage-fairy freight;—
And such, sweet lady, be thy fate!

No. II.

AH! little do those features wear
The shade of grief, the soil of care;
The hair is parted o'er a brow
Open and white as mountain snow,
And thence descends in many a ring,
With sun and summer glistening.

Yet something on that brow has wrought
A moment's cast of passing thought;
Musing of gentle dreams, like those
Which tint the slumbers of the rose:
Not love, love is not yet with thee,—
But just a glimpse what love may be :
A memory of some last night's sigh,
When flitting blush and drooping eye
Answer'd some youthful cavalier,
Whose words sank pleasant on thine ear,
To stir, but not to fill the heart ;—
Dreaming of such, fair girl, thou art.—

Thou blessed season of our spring,
When hopes are angels on the wing;

Bound upwards to their heavenly shore,
Alas! to visit earth no more.
Then step and laugh alike are light,
When, like a summer morning bright,
Our spirits in their mirth are such,
As turn to gold whate'er they touch.
The past! 'tis nothing,-childhood's day
Has roll'd too recently away,

For youth to shed those mournful tears
That fill the eye in older years,

When care looks back on that bright leaf
Of ready smiles and shortlived grief.
The future!-'tis the promised land;
To which hope points with prophet hand,
Telling us fairy tales of flowers

That only change for fruit-and ours.
Though false, though fleeting, and though vain,
Thou blessed time I say again.-

Glad being, with thy downcast eyes,
And visionary look that lies
Beneath their shadow, thou shalt share
A world, where all my treasures are―
My lute's sweet empire, fill'd with all
That will obey my spirit's call;
A world lit up by fancy's sun!
Ah! little like our actual one.

No. III.

His hand is on the snowy sail,

His step is on the prow,

And back the cold night-winds have flung
The dark curls from his brow;

That brow to which his native heaven
A something of itself has given.

But all too mix'd with earthly stain,
The nameless shadowy care,

Which tells, that though Heaven gave it birth,
Its home has not been there;

And here, the earth and heaven seem blent In one discordant element.

It wears our nature's nobler part; That spirit which doth spurn The weary bondage of our world,

And show what man can earn ; Where, led by honourable pride, Hero and sage are deified :

Those high imaginings which make
The glory which they hope;
Fine-wrought aspirings, lofty aims,

Which have in youth such scope; Like tides which, haunted by the moon Rise but, alas! to fall too soon.

Vain are these dreams, and vain these hopes; And yet 'tis these give birth,

To each high purpose, generous deed, That sanctifies our earth.

He who hath highest aim in view, Must dream at first what he will do.

Upon that youthful brow are traced
High impulses like these;
But all too purposeless, like gales
That wander o'er the seas;
Not winds that bear the vessel on,
Fix'd to one point, and only one.

And meaner workings have deform'd
His natural noble mind;

Those wretched aims which waste the ore

For happier use design'd.

And petty wishes, idle praise,
Destroy the hopes of better days.

And hath no earlier vision taught

A more exalted creed?

Alas! that such a mind should waste
Its powers away, to feed
That wretched vanity which clings
To life's debasing, paltry things.

The worthlessness of common praise,
The dry rot of the mind,
By which its temple secretly

But fast is undermined.
Alas! the praise given to the ear
Ne'er was nor e'er can be sincere-

And does but waste away the mind
On which it preys :—in vain
Would they in whom its poison lurks
A worthier state attain.
Indifference proud, immortal aim,
Had, aye, the demigods of fame.

The dew of night falls cold around,
Yet can it not allay

The fever burning on thy check,

That eats thy life away:

For thou dost know thy birthright sold

For even less than his of old.

Thou know'st what thou hast power to be,

Thou know'st, too, what thou art;

And heavily does discontent

Sit rankling at thy heart;

And thou dost mask thy grief the while With scornful sneer, and bitter smile.

But yet thou art too indolent

From such weak bonds to free Thy better self, and urge thy strength To be what thou might'st be;

Thou dost repent the past, and blame, And yet thy future is the same.

Ay, leave thy rudder to the wave

Thy sail upon the wind,

Leave them to chance, and they will be
Fit likeness of thy mind:
Unguided sail, unmaster'd prow,

Are only emblems;-What art thou?

No. IV.

His brow is pale with high and passionate

thoughts,

That come from heaven like lightning, and consume, E'en while they brighten: youth hath lost its hopes:

Those sweet and wandering birds, that make its spring

So happy with their music,-these are gone;
All scared by one, a vulture, that doth feed
Upon the lifeblood of the throbbing heart-
The hope of immortality !—that hope,
Whose altar is the grave, whose sacrifice
Is life-bright, beautiful, and breathing life.
He stands amid the revellers with a joy,
A scarcely conscious joy, in their delight;
In it he has no part, he stands alone;

But the deep music haunts his dreaming ear,-
But the fair forms flit o'er his dreaming eye,-
And exquisite illusions fill his soul
With loveliness to pour in future song.

He leant beside a casement, and the moon
Shed her own stillness o'er the hectic cheek
Whereon the fever of the mind had fed;
His eyes
have turn'd towards th' eternal stars,
Drinking the light into their shadowy depths,
Almost as glorious and as spiritual.

The night-wind touch'd his forehead, with it ran
A faint slight shudder through his wasted frame,—
Alas! how little can bring down our thoughts
From their most lofty communings with heaven,
To poor mortality-that passing chill
Recall'd those bitter feelings that attend
Career half follow'd, and the goal unwon:
He thought upon his few and unknown years,
How much his power, how little it had done;
And then again the pale lip was compress'd
With high resolve, the dark eye flash'd with hope
To snatch a laurel from the grasp of death,
For the green memory of an early grave.

No. V.

THY beauty! not a fault is there;
No queen of Grecian line
E'er braided more luxuriant hair
O'er forehead more divine.

The light of midnight's starry heaven Is in those radiant eyes;

THE NEGLECTED ONE.

AND there is silence in that lonely hall, Save where the waters of the fountain fall, And the wind's distant murmuring, which takes Sweet messages from every bud it wakes. "Tis more than midnight; all the lamps are gone, Their fragrant oils exhausted,—all but one, A little silver lamp beside a scroll, Where a young maiden leant, and pour'd her soul, In those last words, the bitter and the brief. How can they say confiding is relief?

Light are the woes that to the eyelids spring,
Subdued and soften'd by the tears they bring;
But there are some too long, too well conceal'd,
Too deeply felt,-that are but once reveal'd:
Like the withdrawing of the mortal dart,
And then the lifeblood follows from the heart;
Sorrow, before unspoken by a sigh,
But which, once spoken, only hath to die.-

Young, very young, the lady was, who now
Bow'd on her slender hand her weary brow:
Not beautiful, save when the eager thought
In the soft eyes a sudden beauty wrought:

Not beautiful, save when the cheek's warm blush
Grew eloquent with momentary flush
Of feeling, that made beauty, not to last,
And scarcely caught, so quickly is it past.
-Alas! she knew it well; too early thrown
Mid a cold world, the unloved and the lone,
With no near kindred ties on whom could dwell
Love that so sought to be beloved as well.
Too sensitive for flattery, and too kind
To bear the loneliness by fate assign'd,
Her life had been a struggle: long she strove
To fix on things inanimate her love;

On pity, kindness, music, gentle lore,

All that romance could yield of fairy store.

'Twas too much wretchedness:-the convent cell,

There might the maiden with her misery dwell.
And that, to-morrow was her chosen doom:
There might her hopes, her feelings, find a tomb.
Her feelings!-no: pray, struggle, weep, con-
demn,-

Her feelings, there was but one grave for them.
"Twas her last night, and she had look'd her last,
And she must live henceforward in the past.
She linger'd in the hall, he had been there;
Her pale lips grew yet paler with the prayer
That only ask'd his happiness. She took
A blank leaf from an old emblazon'd book,

hour

Gone were the quiet loves of bird or flower;
The unread book dropp'd listless on her knee,
The untouch'd lute hung on the bending tree,
Whose unwreath'd boughs no more a pleasant
shade

For the lone dreamings of her twilight made.
-Well might she love him: every eye was turn'd
On that young knight, and bright cheeks brighter
burn'd,

Save one, that grew the paler for his sake:
Alas! for her, whose heart but beat to break;
Who knew too well, not hers the lip or eye
For which the youthful lover swears to die.
How deep, how merciless, the love represt,
That robs the silent midnight of its rest;
That sees in gather'd crowds but one alone;
That hears in mingled footsteps only one;
That turns the poet's page, to only find
Some mournful image for itself design'd;
That seeks in music, but the plaining tone
Which secret sorrow whispers is its own!
Alas for the young heart, when love is there,
Its comrade and its confidant, despair!

How often leant in some unnoticed spot,
Her very being by the throng forgot,
Shrunk back to shun the glad lamp's mocking ray,
Pass'd many a dark and weary hour away,
Watching the young, the beautiful, the bright,
Seeming more lovely in that lonely light;
And as each fair face glided through the dance,
Stealing at some near mirror one swift glance,
Then, starting at the contrast, seek her room,
To weep, at least, in solitude and gloom!

And he, her stately idol, he, with eye
Dark as the eagle's in a summer sky,

And darker curls, amid whose raven shade
The very wild wind amorously delay'd,

With that bright smile, which makes all others dim,

So proud, so sweet,-what part had she in him? And yet she loved him: who may say, be still, To the fond heart that beats not at our will?

stole,

A sweet light o'er the darkness of her soulMight she not leave remembrance, like the wreath,

Whose dying flowers their scents on twilight breathe;

Just one faint tone of music, low and clear,
Coming when other songs have left the ear?
Might she not tell him how she loved, and pray
A mournful memory for some distant day?
She took the scroll-what! bare perhaps to

scorn

The timid sorrow she so long had borne !
Silent as death, she hid her face, for shame
In rushing crimson to her forehead came;
Through the small fingers fell the bitter rain,
And tremblingly she closed the leaves again.
-The hall is lit with rose, that morning hour,
Whose lights are colour'd by each opening
flower:

A sweet bird by the casement sat and sang
A song so glad, that like a laugh it rang,
While its wings shook the jessamine, till the

bloom

Floated like incense round that joyous room. -They found the maiden: still her face was bow'd,

As with some shame that might not be avow'd; They raised the long hair which her face con

ceal'd,

And she is dead,-her secret unreveal'd.

A NIGHT IN MAY.

A night not sacred to Spring's opening leaves, But one of crowded festival.

LIGHT and glad through the rooms the gay music is waking, Where the young and the lovely are gather'd to-night;