A ROMAN AQUEDUCT.

77

FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE
JOURNAL.

SWEET Mary, I have never breathed
The love it were in vain to name;
Though round my heart a serpent
wreathed,

Once more the pulse of Nature glows With faster throb and fresher fire, While music round her pathway flows, Like echoes from a hidden lyre.

And is there none with me to share The glories of the earth and sky? The eagle through the pathless air

Is followed by one burning eye.

Fresh roses to thy cheek,

The trailing of thy long loose hair

Bent o'er my couch of pain, All, all returned, more sweet, more fair; O had we met again!

I walked where saint and virgin keep The vigil lights of Heaven,

I knew that thou hadst woes to weep, And sins to be forgiven;

I watched where Genevieve was laid,
I knelt by Mary's shrine,
Beside me low, soft voices prayed;

Alas! but where was thine?

And when the morning sun was bright,
When wind and wave were calm,
And flamed, in thousand-tinted light,
The rose of Notre Dame,

And what if court or castle vaunt

Its children loftier born? Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt Beside the golden corn? They ask not for the dainty toil

Of ribboned knights and earls, The daughters of the virgin soil, Our freeborn Yankee girls!

From Boulevard to Quai,

Till, frowning o'er Saint Etienne,

The Pantheon's shadow lay.

In vain, in vain; we meet no more,
Nor dream what fates befall;
And long upon the stranger's shore
My voice on thee may call,
When years have clothed the line in moss

That tells thy name and days,
And withered, on thy simple cross,
The wreaths of Père-la-Chaise !

OUR YANKEE GIRLS.

LET greener lands and bluer skies,
If such the wide earth shows,
With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes,
Match us the star and rose ;

Wave their dark arms above

The home where some fair being shines,

To warm the wilds with love, From barest rock to bleakest shore Where farthest sail unfurls, That stars and stripes are streaming o'er,

God bless our Yankee girls!

L'INCONNUE.

Is thy name Mary, maiden fair?
Such should, methinks, its music be;
The sweetest name that mortals bear
Were best befitting thee;

And she to whom it once was given,
Was half of earth and half of heaven.

Or wave Circassia's curls,

Waft to their shores the sultan's sail,

Who buys our Yankee girls?

I look upon thy folded hair; Ah! while we dream not they beguile,

Our hearts are in the snare; And she who chains a wild bird's wing Must start not if her captive sing.

So, lady, take the leaf that falls,

To all but thee unseen, unknown; When evening shades thy silent walls, Then read it all alone; In stillness read, in darkness seal, Forget, despise, but not reveal!

STANZAS.

And she put it in her pocket With very special care.

For my cooings and my billings
I do not now complain,
But my dollars and my shillings
Will never come again;
They were earned with toil and sorrow,
But I never told her that,
And now I have to borrow,

And want another hat.

Think, think, thou cruel Emma, When thou shalt hear my woe, And know my sad dilemma,

That thou hast made it so. See, see my beaver rusty,

Look, look upon this hole, This coat is dim and dusty; O let it rend thy soul !

Before the gates of fashion
I daily bent my knee,
But I sought the shrine of passion,
And found my idol, — thee.
Though never love intenser

Had bowed a soul before it, Thine eye was on the censer,

And not the hand that bore it.

LINES BY A CLERK.

OH! I did love her dearly,
And gave her toys and rings,
And I thought she meant sincerely,
When she took my pretty things.
But her heart has grown as icy

As a fountain in the fall,
And her love, that was so spicy,
It did not last at all.

I gave her once a locket,

It was filled with my own hair,

THE PHILOSOPHER TO HIS LOVE.
DEAREST, a look is but a ray
Reflected in a certain way;
A word, whatever tone it wear,
Is but a trembling wave of air;
A touch, obedience to a clause
In nature's pure material laws.

The very flowers that bend and meet,
In sweetening others, grow more sweet;