JACQUELINE,

A TALE,

PART I

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 ;
Oft in my porch the listless noon beguile,

Framing loose numbers.

JACQUELINE.

I.

'Twas Autumn; thro' Provence had ceased

The vintage, and the vintage-feast.

The sun had set behind the hill,

The moon was up, and all was still,

And from the Convent's neighbouring tower
The clock had tolled the midnight hour,
When Jacqueline came forth alone,
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?

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She stops, she pants; with lips apart
She listens to her beating heart!

Then, through the scanty orchard stealing,
The clustering boughs her track concealing,
She flies, nor casts a thought behind,
But gives her terrours 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,
Who would have seen and not confessed
It looked as all within were blest?
What will not woman, when she loves ?
Yet lost, alas, who can restore her ?
She lifts the latch, the wicket moves;
And now the world is all before her.

Up rose St. Pierre, when morning shone;
-And Jacqueline, his child, was gone!
Oh what the madd'ning thought that came?
Dishonour coupled with his name!

By Condé at Rocroy he stood;

By Turenne, when the Rhine ran blond,

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