BY MRS. CORNWELL BARON WILSON.
YES! once I own I loved thee,
With purest flame, with purest flame; The smiles of beauty moved me,
Let stoics blame, let stoics blame; Aye! let them scorn love's tender theme, And with cold hearts such lays deride; One hour of youth's romantic dream, Is worth an age of life beside!
When Hope's soft voice was singing, Her sweetest lay, her sweetest lay; And smiles, like flowers, were springing Around my way, around my way ;- Then first in joyous hour we met,
With bosoms light, from sorrow free,
Nor did I dream that dark regret
Could ever rise at thoughts of THEE!
'Twas in youth's summer season,
When hearts were gay, when hearts were gay; Before the wand of reason
Chased hope away, chased hope away;
That first this bosom felt love's power,
And worshipped at his fairy shrine;
Nor ever thought that luckless hour
Would be the source of griefs like mine!
That sunny time passed over,
And life grew dark, and life And fate soon left thy lover, A stranded bark, a stranded bark; Of all his early glories reft,
On life's rude ocean dark and dim, With not one friendly harbour left, Or welcome port to shelter him!
Still in that hour of sorrow,
When fortune frowned, when fortune frowned; His heart one hope could borrow,
To look around, to look around; It was the blissful thought of thee, In life's first bright unclouded day, That lightened all the misery
That tracked the wanderer's weary way!
Yet this last hope was blighted,
So fate decreed, so fate decreed; For THOU, like others, slighted
The bruised reed, the bruised reed; Yes! thou wert like that faithless thing,
The blue-winged bird of distant isles,
That only spreads its painted wing,
And breathes its song when Phoebus smiles!
Yes! once I own I loved thee, Alas! too well, alas! too well; How faithless I have proved thee, I will not tell, I will not tell! Let stoics scorn love's tender theme, And turn away their eyes of pride; Give me one hour of passion's dream, 'Tis worth an age of life beside!
BETWEEN two worlds life hovers like a star, "Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge,
How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves
Of empires heave but like some mightier waves!
AWAKE, my love! ere morning's ray Throws off night's weed of pilgrim grey ; Ere yet the hare, cowered close from view Licks from her fleece the clover dew; Or wild swan shakes her snowy wings, By hunters roused from secret springs; Or birds upon the boughs awake, Till green Arbigland's woodlands shake!
She combed her curling ringlets down, Laced her green jupes and clasped her shoon, And from her home by Preston burn
- Came forth the rival light of morn.
The lark's song dropt, now loud, now hush ;— The gold-spink answered from the bush,— The plover, fed on heather crop, Called from the misty mountain top.
'Tis sweet, she said, while thus the day Grows into gold from silvery grey, To hearken heaven, and bush and brake, Instinct with soul of song, awake;— To see the smoke, in many a wreath, Stream blue from hall and bower beneath, Where yon blithe mower hastes along With glittering scythe and rustic song.
Yes, lovely one! and dost thou mark
The moral of yon caroling lark ?
Tak'st thou from nature's counsellor tongue
The warning precept of her song?
Each bird that shakes the dewy grove
Warms its wild note with nuptial love
The bird, the bee, with various sound, Proclaim the sweets of wedlock 'round.
THE shore was reefed with rocks, whose rugged sides Were venturous footing for the fowler's step: They were shaped out in wild and curious forms, Above, all jagged and broken, but below
The waves had worn the shaggy points away; For there they rave incessantly. When last I past along the beach, it was at eve, A summer's eve, stormy, but beautiful; I looked in silence, on the western sky, The rest was hidden from my view; but there The day had spent its glory. One rich light Broke through the shadow of the tempest's wing, While the black clouds, with gold and purple edged, Caught every moment warmer hues, until "Twas all one sparkling arch, and, like a king, In triumph o'er his foes, the Sun-god sought The blue depths of the sea ;-the waters yet Were ruffled with the storm, and the white foam Yet floated on the billows, while the wind Murmured at times like to an angry child, Who sobs even in his slumber. Mid the rocks That rose stern barriers to the rebel waves, There was one spot less rugged than the rest : Some firs had taken root there, and waved o'er The entrance of a cave, where Grecian bards Had said some Sea-maid dwelt, and decked the place With ocean treasures, for the walls were bright With crystal spar: In sooth, it seemed just formed For some fair daughter of the main; at noon, Here she might bind her hair with shells, and wake Her golden harp. But now a legend's told Of human love and sorrow-it is called The Cavern of the Pirate's Love:-her fate Is soon and sadly told: she followed one, A lawless wanderer of the deep, for whom She left her father's halls. A little while She might know happiness-it is the heart That gives the colour to our destiny.
But lovely things are fleeting-blushes, sighs,
The hours of youth, smiles, hopes, and minstrel-dreams, Spring days and blossoms, music's tones, are all Most fugitive; and swifter still than these
Will love dissolve into forgetfulness.
She was deserted. For awhile this cave Was her sad refuge; for awhile the rocks Echoed her wild complainings. I can deem How she would gaze upon the sea, and think Each passing cloud her lover's bark, 'till, hope Sickened of its own vanity, and life
Sickened with hope; she passed and left a tale, A melancholy tale, just fit to tell
On such an eve as this, when sky and sea Are sleeping in the mute and mournful calm Of passion sunk to rest.
Aн, why to my too feeling mind Is this my native place so dear, As if it had some chain to bind In lasting links my being here?
I need not ask! twas this calm scene Witnessed ere yet a stranger! I
Had mingled with tumultuous men My purest grief-my purest joy.
For 'twas this spot on my young cheek That saw the first emotion rise, That saw its little woe to speak,
The first tear dim my infant eyes.
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