STANZAS.

Он, no! my heart can never be Again in lightest hopes the same; The love that lingers there for thee Has more of ashes than of flame. Still deem not but that I am yet

As much as ever all thine own; Though now the soul of love be set On a heart chill'd almost to stone. And can you marvel? only look

On all that heart has had to bearOn all that it has yet to brook,

And wonder then at its despair.

Oh, love is destiny, and mine

Has long been struggled with in vain; Victim or votary, at thy shrine

There I am vow'd-there must remain.

My first-my last-my only love,

Oh blame me not for that I dwell On all that I have had to prove

Of Love's despair, of Hope's farewell. I think upon mine early dreams,

When youth, hope, joy, together sprung; The gushing forth of mountain streams,

On which no shadow had been flung. When love seem'd only meant to make A sunshine on life's silver seas,— Alas, that we should ever wake,

And wake to weep o'er dreams like these!

I loved, and love was like to me
The spirit of a fairy tale,
When we have but to wish, and be

Whatever wild wish may prevail.

I deem'd that love had power to part
The chains and blossoms of life's thrall,
Make an Elysium of the heart,

And shed its influence over all.

I link'd it with all lovely things,

Beautiful pictures, tones of song, All those pure, high imaginings,

That but in thought to earth belong. And all that was unreal became Reality when blent with theeIt was but colouring that flame,

More than a lava flood to me. I was not happy-love forbade

Peace by its feverish restlessness; But this was sweet, and then I had Hope, which relies on happiness.

I need not say how, one by one,

Love's flowers have dropp'd from off love's chain; Enough to say that they are gone,

And that they cannot bloom again.

I know not what the pangs may be

That hearts betray'd or slighted proveI speak but of the misery

That waits on fond and mutual love.

It sitteth cold, immutable, and still,
Girt with eternal consciousness of ill,
And strong and silent as its own dark will.
We are the victims of its iron rule,
The warm and beating human heart its tool;
And man, immortal, godlike, but its fool.
We know not of its presence, though its power
Be on the gradual round of every hour,
Now flinging down an empire, now a flower.
And all things small and careless are its own,
Unwittingly the seed minute is sown,
The tree of evil out of it is grown.

At times we see and struggle with our chain,
And dream that somewhat we are freed, in vain ;
The mighty fetters close on us again.

We mock our actual strength with lofty thought, And towers that look into the heavens are wrought, But after all our toil the task is naught.

Down comes the stately fabric, and the sands
Are scatter'd with the work of myriad hands,
High o'er whose pride the fragile wild-flower stands.
Such are the wreck of nations and of kings,
Far in the desert, where the palm-tree springs;
"Tis the same story in all meaner things.

The heart builds up its hopes, though not address'd
To meet the sunset glories of the west,
But garner'd in some still, sweet-singing nest.
But the dark power is on its noiseless way,
The song is silent so sweet yesterday,
And not a green leaf lingers on the spray.

We mock ourselves with freedom and with hope, The while our feet glide down life's faithless slope; One has no strength, the other has no scope.

So we are flung on time's tumultuous wave, Forced there to struggle, but denied to save, Till the stern tide ebbs-and there is the grave.

MEMORY.

I Do not say bequeath unto my soul
Thy memory, I rather ask forgetting;
Withdraw, I pray, from me thy strong control,
Leave something in the wide world worth regret-
ting.

I need my thoughts for other things than thee,
I dare not let thine image fill them only;
The hurried happiness it wakes in me

Will leave the hours that are to come more lonely. I live not like the many of my kind;

Mine is a world of feelings and of fancies, Fancies whose rainbow-empire is the mind,

Feelings that realize their own romances. To dream and to create has been my fate,

Alone, apart from life's more busy scheming; I fear to think that I may find too late

Vain was the toil, and idle was the dreaming. Have I uprear'd my glorious pyre of thought

Up to the heavens, but for my own entombing? The fair and fragrant things that years have brought, Must they be gather'd for my own consuming? Oh! give me back the past that took no part In the existence it was but surveying; That knew not then of the awaken'd heart

Amid the life of other lives decaying.

Why should such be mine own? I sought it not:
More than content to live apart and lonely,
The feverish tumult of a loving lot

Is what I wish'd, and thought to picture only. Surely the spirit is its own free will;

What should o'ermaster mine to vain complying With hopes that call down what they bring of ill, With fears to their own questioning replying? In vain, in vain! Fate is above us all;

We struggle, but what matters our endeavour? Our doom is gone beyond our own recall, May we deny or mitigate it? never!

WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN!

WE might have been! these are but common words,
And yet they make the sum of life's bewailing;
They are the echo of those finer chords,
Whose music life deplores when unavailing.
We might have been!

We might have been so happy! says the child,
Pent in the weary school-room during summer,
When the green rushes mid the marshes wild,
And rosy fruits, attend the radiant comer.
We might have been!

It is the thought that darkens on our youth,
When first experience, sad experience, teaches
What fallacies we have believed for truth,
And what few truths endeavour ever reaches.
We might have been!

Alas! how different from what we are

Had we but known the bitter path before us; But feelings, hopes, and fancies left afar, What in the wide bleak world can e'er restore us? We might have been!

It is the motto of all human things,

The end of all that waits on mortal seeking; The weary weight upon Hope's flagging wings, It is the cry of the worn heart while breakingWe might have been!

And when, warm with the heaven that gave it birth,
Dawns on our world-worn way Love's hour
Elysian,

The last fair angel lingering on our earth,
The shadow of what thought obscures the vision?
We might have been!

A cold fatality attends on love,

Too soon or else too late the heart-beat quickens; The star which is our fate springs up above, And we but say, while round the vapour thickens, We might have been!

Life knoweth no like misery; the rest

Are single sorrows, but in this are blended All sweet emotions that disturb the breast; The light that was our loveliest is ended. We might have been!

Henceforth, how much of the full heart must be A sealed book at whose contents we tremble? A still voice mutters mid our misery,

The worst to hear, because it must dissembleWe might have been!

Life is made up of miserable hours,

And all of which we craved a brief possessing, For which we wasted wishes, hopes, and powers, Comes with some fatal drawback on the blessing. We might have been!

The future never renders to the past

The young beliefs intrusted to its keeping; Inscribe one sentence-life's first truth and lastOn the pale marble where our dust is sleepingWe might have been!

But no more does that perfume
Hang around the purple loom
Where Calypso wove

Threads of gold with curious skill,
Singing at her own sweet will
Ancient songs of love;
Weary on the sea-wash'd shore,
She will sing those songs no more

In the lone and lovely island Mid the far off southern seas. From the large green leaves escape Clusters of the blooming grape;

Round the shining throne Still the silver fountains play, Singing on through night and day, But they sing alone: Lovely in their early death, No one binds a violet wreath,

In the lone and lovely island Mid the far off southern seas. Love and Fate-ob, fearful pair! Terrible in strength ye are; Until ye had been, Happy as a summer night, Conscious of its own sweet light, Was that Island-queen. Would she could forget to grieve, Or that she could die, and leave

THE WRONGS OF LOVE.

ALAS, how bitter are the wrongs of love! Life has no other sorrow so acute:

For love is made of every fine emotion,
Of generous impulses, and noble thoughts;
It looketh to the stars, and dreams of heaven;
It nestles mid the flowers, and sweetens earth.
Love is aspiring, yet is humble, too:
It doth exalt another o'er itself,

With sweet heart-homage, which delights to raise That which it worships; yet is fain to win

The idol to its lone and lowly home

Of deep affection. 'Tis an utter wreck

When such hopes perish. From that moment, life
Has in its depths a well of bitterness,
For which there is no healing.

THE OLD TIMES.

Do you recall what now is living only

Amid the memories garner'd at the heart? The quiet garden, quiet and so lonely,

Where fruit and flowers had each an equal part? When we had gather'd cowslips in the meadow

We used to bear them to the ancient seat,
Moss-grown, beneath the apple-tree's soft shadow,
Which flung its rosy blossoms at our feet,

In the old, old times,
The dear old times.

Ne'er was the well o'er whose damp walls were weeping

Stonecrop, and grounsel, and pale yellow flowers, While o'er the banks the strawberry plants were creeping

In the white beauty of June's earliest hours. The currant-bush and lilac grew together;

The bean's sweet breath was blended with the Alike rejoicing in the pleasant weather [rose; That brought the bloom to these, the fruit to those, In the old, old times, The dear old times.

There was no fountain over marble falling;

But the bees murmur'd one perpetual song, Like soothing waters, and the birds were calling Amid the fruit-tree blossoms all day long; Upon the sunny grass-plot stood the dial,

Whose measured time strange contrast with ours Ah! was it omen of life's after trial, [made: That even then the hours were told in shade, In the old, old times, The dear old times?

But little reck'd we then of those sick fancies
To which in after life the spirit yields:
Our world was of the fairies and romances

With which we wander'd o'er the summer fields; Then did we question of the down-balls blowing

To know if some slight wish would come to pass; If showers we fear'd, we sought where there was

growing

Some weather flower which was our weather glass
In the old, old times
The dear old times.

Yet my heart warms at these fond recollections,
Breaking the heavy shadow on my day.
Ah! who hath cared for all the deep affections-
The love, the kindness I have thrown away?
The dear old garden! There is now remaining

As little of its bloom as rests with me. Thy only memory is this sad complaining, Mourning that never more for us can be The old, old times, The dear old times.

CRESCENTIUS.

I LOOK'D upon his brow, no sign
Of guilt or fear was there;

He stood as proud by that death-shrine
As even o'er Despair

He had a power; in his eye

There was a quenchless energy,
A spirit that could dare

The deadliest form that Death could take,
And dare it for the daring's sake.

He stood, the fetters on his hand,
He raised them haughtily;

And had that grasp been on the brand,
It could not wave on high

With freer pride than it waved now. Around he look'd with changeless brow On many a torture nigh:

The rack, the chain, the axe, the wheel, And worst of all, his own red steel.

I saw him once before; he rode
Upon a coal-black steed,

And tens of thousands throng'd the road
And bade their warrior speed.
His helm, his breastplate, were of gold,
And graved with many a dint that told
Of many a soldier's deed;
The sun shone on his sparkling mail,
And danced his snow-plume on the gale.
But now he stood chain'd and alone,
The headsman by his side;

The plume, the helm, the charger, gone;
The sword, which had defied
The mightiest, lay broken near;
And yet no sign or sound of fear

Came from that lip of pride;
And never king or conqueror's brow
Wore higher look than his did now.

He bent beneath the headsman's stroke
With an uncover'd eye;

A wild shout from the numbers broke
Who throng'd to see him die.
It was a people's loud acclaim,
The voice of anger and of shame,
A nation's funeral cry,
Rome's wail above her only son,
Her patriot, and her latest one.