ERNESTO.

THOUGHTFULLY by the side Ernesto sate
Of her whom, in his earlier youth, with heart
Then first exulting in a dangerous hope,
Dearer for danger, he had rashly loved.
That was a season when the untravell'd spirit,
Not way-worn nor way-wearied, nor with soil
Nor stain upon it, lions in its path
Saw none or seeing, with triumphant trust
In its resources and its powers, defied―
Perverse to find provocatives in warnings,
And in disturbance taking deep delight.
By sea or land he still saw rise the storm
With a gay courage, and through broken lights,
Tempestuously exalted, for a while

His heart ran mountains high, or to the roar
Of shatter'd forests sang superior songs

With kindling, and what might have seem'd to some,

Auspicious energy;-by land and sea

He was way-founder'd-trampled in the dust

His many-colour'd hopes-his lading rich

Of precious pictures, bright imaginations,

In absolute shipwreck to the wind and waves
Suddenly render'd-

By her side he sate:

But time had been between and wov'n a veil
Of seven years' separation; and the past
Was seen with soften'd outlines, like the face
Of Nature through a mist. What was so seen?
In a short hour, there sitting with his eyes
Fix'd on her face, observant though abstracted,

Lost partly in the past, but mixing still
With his remembrances the life before him,
He traced it all-the pleasant first accost,
Agreeable acquaintance, growing friendship,
Love, passion at the culminating point
When in a sleeping body through the night
The heart would lie awake, reverses next
Gnawing the mind with doubtfulness, and last
The affectionate bitterness of love refused.
-Rash had he been by choice-by wanton choice
Deliberately rash; but in the soil

Where grows the bane, grows too the antidote;
The same young-heartedness which knew not fear
Renounced despondency, and brought at need
With its results, resources. In his day

Of utter condemnation, there remain'd
Appeal to that imaginative power

Which can commute a sentence of sore pain
For one of softer sadness, which can bathe
The broken spirit in the balm of tears.

And more and better to after days; for soon
Upsprang the mind within him, and he knew
The affluence and the growth which nature yields
After an overflow of loving grief.

Hence did he deem that he could freely draw

A natural indemnity. The tree

Sucks kindlier nurture from a soil enrich'd

By its own fallen leaves; and man is made

In heart and spirit from deciduous hopes

And things that seem to perish. Thro' the stress And fever of his suit, from first to last,

His pride (to call it by no nobler name)

Had been to love with reason and with truth,
To carry clear thro' many a turbulent trial
A perspicacious judgment and true tongue,
And neither with fair word nor partial thought
To flatter whom he loved. If pride it was

To love and not to flatter, by a breath

Of purer aspiration was he moved

To suffer and not blame, grieve, not resent;

And when all hopes that needs must knit with self

Their object, were irrevocably gone,

Cherish a mild commemorative love,

Such as a mourner might unblamed bestow
On a departed spirit-

Once again

He sate beside her-for the last time now.
And scarcely was she alter'd; for the hours
Had led her lightly down the vale of life,
Dancing and scattering roses, and her face
Seem'd a perpetual daybreak, and the woods,
Where'er she rambled, echoed through their aisles
The music of a laugh so softly gay

That spring with all her songsters and her songs
Knew nothing like it. But how changed was he!
Care and disease and ardours unrepress'd,
And labours unremitted, and much grief,

Had written their death-warrant on his brow.

Of this she saw not all-she saw but little-
That which she could not choose but see she saw;

And o'er her sunlit dimples and her smiles

A shadow fell-a transitory shade;

And when the phantom of a hand she clasped

At parting scarce responded to her touch,

She sigh'd-but hoped the best.

When winter came

She sigh'd again;-for with it came the word

That trouble and love had found their place of rest And slept beneath Madeira's orange groves.

MOIR.

CASA WAPPY.*

AND hast thou sought thy heavenly home,
Our fond, dear boy-

The realms where sorrow dare not come,
Where life is joy?

Pure at thy death as at thy birth,
Thy spirit caught no taint from earth;
Even by its bliss we mete our death,

Casa Wappy!

Despair was in our last farewell,

As closed thine eye;

Tears of our anguish may not tell

When thou didst die;

Words may not paint our grief for thee,

Sighs are but bubbles on the sea

Of our unfathomed agony,

Casa Wappy!

Thou wert a vision of delight

To bless us given;
Beauty embodied to our sight,

A type of heaven:

So dear to us thou wert, thou art

Even less thine own self than a part

Of mine and of thy mother's heart,

Casa Wappy!

* Casa Wappy was the self-conferred pet-name of an infant son of the poet, snatched away after a very brief illness.

Thy bright brief day knew no decline,

'Twas cloudless joy;

Sunrise and night alone were thine
Beloved boy!

This morn beheld thee blithe and gay,
That found thee prostrate in decay,
And ere a third shone, clay was clay,
Casa Wappy!

Gem of our hearth, our household pride,

Earth's undefiled;

Could love have saved, thou hadst not died,

Our dear, sweet child!

Humbly we bow to Fate's decree;

Yet had we hoped that Time should see

Thee mourn for us, not us for thee,

Casa Wappy!

Do what I may, go where I will,
Thou meet'st my sight;

There dost thou glide before me still-
A form of light!

I feel thy breath upon my cheek—
I see thee smile, I hear thee speak-
Till oh my heart is like to break,

Casa Wappy!

Methinks thou smil'st before me now,

With glance of stealth;

The hair thrown back from thy full brow In buoyant health:

I see thine eye's deep violet light,

Thy dimpled cheek carnationed bright,
Thy clasping arms so round and white,

Casa Wappy!