And each to the other embracing will say, THE SHRINE. TO. My fates had destined me to rove I now have reached THE SHRINE at last! THE CATALOGUE. 'COME, tell me,' says Rosa, as, kissing and kissed, One day she reclined on my breast; 'Come, tell me the number, repeat me the list But I ll tell thee, my girl, how many I've loved, My tutor was Kitty; in infancy wild She taught me to love her, I loved like a child, This lesson of dear and enrapturing lore I have never forgot, I allow; I have had it by rote very often before, But never by heart until now! Pretty Martha was next, and my soul was all flame, But my head was so full of romance, That I fancied her into some chivalry dame, And I was her knight of the lance! But Martha was not of this fanciful school, My soul was now calm, till, by Cloris's looks, But Cloris, I found, was so learned in books, Who argue the point with a soul-telling eye, Oh! Susan was then all the world unto me, And the worst of it was, we could never agree I devoutly believe there's a heaven on earth, ΤΟ REMEMBER him thou leav'st behind, Oh! I had long in freedom roved, Though many seemed my soul to share ; E'en she, my Muse's early theme, Beguiled me only while she warmed; But thou-ah! better had it been If I had still in freedom roved, If I had ne'er thy beauties seen, For then I never should have loved! Then all the pain which lovers feel Had never to my heart been known; Oh! trust me, when I swear thee this, That little cage I would not part, Still, my beloved! still keep in mind, And though ungenial ties have bound That arm, which clasps thy bosom round, No, no! that heart is only mine, By ties all other ties above, For I have wed it at a shrine Where we have had no priest but Love! SONG. A CAPTIVE thus to thee, my girl, To wanton up and down my cage! When Death shall envy joy like this, And come to shade our sunny weather, Be our last sigh the sigh of bliss, And both our souls exhaled together! SONG. WHERE is the nymph, whose azure eye Was that her footstep on the hill— No; 'twas the wind, and all is still: Come to me, love, I've wandered far, REUBEN AND ROSE. A TALE OF ROMANCE. THE darkness which hung upon Willumberg's walls Though the valleys were brightened by many a beam, 'Oh! when shall this horrible darkness disperse ?' 'It can never dispel,' said the wizard of verse, 'Till the bright star of chivalry's sunk in the wave !' And who was the bright star of chivalry then? Who could be but Reuben, the flower of the age? For Reuben was first in the combat of men, Though Youth had scarce written his name on her page. For Willumberg's daughter his bosom had beat, Must Rose, then, from Reuben so fatally sever? She flew to the wizard-'And tell me, oh tell! Of the mouldering abbey, your Reuben shall rise !' Her hero could smile at the terrors of death, When he felt that he died for the sire of his Rose' To the Oder he flew, and there plunging beneath, In the lapse of the billows soon found his repose. How strangely the order of destiny falls ! There sorrow and terror lay gloomy and blank : Oft, oft did she pause for the toll of the bell, And she heard but the breathings of night in the air; Long, long did she gaze on the watery swell, And she saw but the foam of the white billow there. And often as midnight its veil would undraw, As she looked at the light of the moon in the stream, She thought 'twas his helmet of silver she saw, As the curl of the surge glittered high in the beam. And now the third night was begemming the sky, She startled, and saw, through the glimmering shade, She knew 'twas her love, though his cheek was decayed, Was this what the seer of the cave had foretold ?— Twice, thrice did he rise, and as often she thought From the bank to embrace him, but never, ah! never! Then springing beneath, at a billow she caught, And sunk to repose on its bosom for ever! SONG. ON THE BIRTHDAY OF MRS. WRITTEN IN IRELAND. Or all my happiest hours of joy,— Has kindled with the beams of pleasure! Such hours as this I ne'er was given, So dear to friendship, dear to blisses: |