When Spring bursts forth in blossoms through the vale, And her wild music triumphs on the gale, Oft with my book I muse from stile to stile; The moon was up, and all was still, And from the Convent's neighbouring tower The clock had tolled the midnight hour, Her kerchief o'er her tresses thrown; A guilty thing and full of fears, Yet ah, how lovely in her tears! She starts, and what has caught her eye? What-but her shadow gliding by? She stops, she pants; with lips apart She listens–to her beating heart! Then, thro' the scanty orchard stealing, The clustering boughs her track concealing, She flies, nor casts a thought behind, But gives her terrors to the wind; Flies from her home, the humble sphere Of all her joys and sorrows here, Her father's house of mountain-stone, And by a mountain-vine o'ergrown. At such an hour in such a night, So calm, so clear, so heavenly bright, 20 10 Who would have seen and not confessed What will not woman, when she loves? Up rose St. Pierre, when morning shone; -And Jacqueline, his child, was gone! Oh what the madd'ning thought that came? By Condé at Rocroy he stood; By Turenne, when the Rhine ran blood. Two banners of Castile he gave Aloft in Notre Dame to wave; Nor did thy cross, St. Louis, rest Upon a purer, nobler breast. 30 40 |