THERE be none of Beauty's daughters With a magic like thee;
And like music on the waters
Is thy sweet voice to me: When, as if its sound were causing The charmed ocean's pausing, The waves lie still and gleaming, And the lulled winds seem dreaming,
And the midnight moon is weaving
Her bright chain o'er the deep;
Whose breast is gently heaving,
As an infant's asleep :
So the spirit bows before thee,
To listen and adore thee;
With a full but soft emotion,
Like the swell of Summer's ocean.
"Alas! they had been friends in Youth;
"But whispering tongues can poison truth;
"And constancy lives in realms above :
"And Life is thorny; and youth is vain :
"And to be wroth with one we love,
"Doth work like madness in the brain:
They stood aloof, the scars remaining,
"Like cliffs, which had been rent asunder;
"A dreary sea now flows between,
"But neither heat, nor frost, nor thunder
"Shall wholly do away, I ween,
The marks of that which once hath been.
FARE thee well! and if for ever,
Still for ever, fare thee well:
Even though unforgiving, never
'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel. Would that breast were bared before thee Where thy head so oft hath lain,
While that placid sleep came o'er thee
Which thou ne'er canst know again:
Would that breast, by thee glanced over,
Every inmost thought could show!
Then thou would'st at last discover
'Twas not well to spurn it so.
Though the world for this commend thee-
Though it smile upon the blow,
Even its praises must offend thee,
Founded on another's woe-
Though my many faults defaced me,
Could no other arm be found
Than the one which once embraced me,
To inflict a cureless wound?
Yet, oh yet, thyself deceive not;
Love may sink by slow decay,
But by sudden wrench, believe not
Hearts can thus be torn away:
Still thine own its life retaineth-
Still must mine, though bleeding, beat;
And the undying thought which paineth
Is-that we no more may meet.
These are words of deeper sorrow
Than the wail above the dead;
Both shall live, but every morrow
Wake us from a widow'd bed.
And when thou would'st solace gather,
When our child's first accents flow,
Wilt thou teach her to say
Though his care she must forego?
When her little hands shall press thee,
When her lip to thine is prest,
Think of him whose prayer shall bless thee,
Think of him thy love had bless'd!
Should her lineaments resemble
Those thou never more may'st see,
Then thy heart will softly tremble
With a pulse yet true to me.
All my faults perchance thou knowest,
my madness none can know;
All my hopes, where'er thou goest,
Wither, yet with thee they go.
Every feeling hath been shaken;
Pride, which not a world could bow,
Bows to thee-by thee forsaken,
Even my
But 'tis done-all words are idle-
soul forsakes me now:
Words from me are vainer still;
But the thoughts we cannot bridle
Force their way without the will.—
Fare thee well!-thus disunited,
Torn from every nearer tie,
Sear'd in heart, and lone, and blighted-
More than this I scarce can die.
"Honest-Honest Iago!
** If that thou be'st a devil, I cannot kill thee."
BORN in the garret, in the kitchen bred,
Promoted thence to deck her mistress' head;
Next for some gracious service unexprest,
And from its wages only to be guess’d—
Raised from the toilet to the table,-where
Her wondering betters wait behind her chair.
With eye unmoved, and forehead unabash'd,
She dines from off the plate she lately wash'd.
Quick with the tale, and ready with the lie—
The genial confidante, and general spy-
Who could, ye gods! her next employment guess—
An only infant's earliest governess!
She taught the child to read, and taught so well,
That she herself, by teaching, learn'd to spell.
An adept next in penmanship she grows,
As many a nameless slander deftly shows:
What she had made the pupil of her art,
None know-but that high Soul secured the heart,
And panted for the truth it could not hear,
With longing breast and undeluded ear.
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