MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

To distant shores; and she would sit and weep

At what a sailor suffers; fancy, too,
Delusive most where warmest wishes are,
Would oft anticipate his glad return,

And dream of transports she was not to know.
She heard the doleful tidings of his death-
And never smil'd again! and now she roams
The dreary waste; there spends the livelong day,
And there, unless when charity forbids,

The livelong night. A tatter'd apron hides,
Worn as a cloak, and hardly hides, a gown
More tatter'd still; and both but ill conceal
A bosom heav'd with never-ceasing sighs.
She begs an idle pin of all she meets,

And hoards them in her sleeve; but needful food,
Though press'd with hunger oft, or comelier clothes,
Though pinch'd with cold, asks never.-Kate is craz❜d.

COWPER.

TO MARGUERITE, COUNTESS OF BLESSINGTON.

BY L. E. L.

I PRAY thee, ladye, turn these leaves,
And gaze upon the face

Whose lineaments no artist's skill,
Methinks, could truly trace.

The outline knows art's fine control,
There are no colours for the soul.

And thou wert his familiar friend,*
Whose kindness and whose care
Bore with, and tenderly would soothe,
The mood it could not share.
Ah! all who feel that poet's powers,
Should thank thee for his pleasant hours.

• Lady Blessington's "Conversations with Lord Byron."

R

65

If I can read that face aright,

"Tis something more than fair: Ah! not alone the lovely face, The lovely heart is there.

The smile that seems to light and win,
Speaks of the deeper world within.

Amid Ravenna's purple woods,
Purple with day's decline,
When the sweet evening winds around
Were murmuring in the pine-
Did that dark spirit yield to thee
The trouble of its melody.

How gentle and how womanly

Thy soft mind must have reigned,
Before it could have won from him
The confidence it gained!

For chords like his, so finely strung,
With but a single touch are wrung.

Beneath that soft Italian sky,

How much must thou have heard
Of lofty hope-of low despair-
Of deep emotions stirred-

Thy woman's heart became to thee
Memory and music's master-key.

He must have looked on that sweet face,
And felt those eyes were kind;
No need to fear from one like thee

The mask, the mock, the blind.
Where he might trust himself he knew-

The instinct of the heart is true.

Thy page is open at my side

Thy latest one, which tells,* How in a world so seeming fair

What hate and falsehood dwells.

A dangerous Paradise is ours,
The serpent hides beneath its flowers.

"The Victims of Society."