She tried as usual for the trial's sake, For even that diminished her heart-ache; And never yet, how ill soe'er at ease,
Came she for nothing 'midst the flowers and trees.
Yet somehow or another, on that day
She seemed to feel too lightly borne away,-
Too much relieved,-too much inclined to draw
A careless joy from everything she saw,
And looking round her with a new-born eye,
As if some tree of knowledge had been nigh,
To taste of nature primitive and free,
And bask at ease in her heart's liberty.
Painfully clear those rising thoughts appeared, With something dark at bottom that she feared : And snatching from the fields her thoughtful look, She reached o'erhead, and took her down a book, And fell to reading with as fixed an air,
As though she had been wrapt since morning there.
'Twas "Launcelot of the Lake," a bright ro
That like a trumpet made young pulses dance,
Yet had a softer note that shook still more:-
She had begun it but the day before,
And read with a full heart, half sweet, half sad,
How old King Ban was spoiled of all he had
But one fair castle: how one summer's day
With his fair queen and child he went away
To ask the great King Arthur for assistance;
How reaching by himself a hill at distance
He turned to give his castle a last look,
And saw its far white face; and how a smoke
As he was looking, burst in volumes forth,
And good King Ban saw all that he was worth,
And his fair castle burning to the ground,
So that his wearied pulse felt over-wound,
And he lay down, and said a prayer apart
For those he loved, and broke his poor old heart.
Then read she of the queen with her young child,
How she came up, and nearly had gone wild,
And how in journeying on in her despair,
She reached a lake, and met a lady there,
Who pitied her, and took the baby sweet
Into her arms, when lo, with closing feet
She sprang up all at once, like bird from brake,
And vanished with him underneath the lake.
The mother's feelings we as well may pass :-
The fairy of the place that lady was,
And Launcelot (so the boy was called) became
Her inmate, till in search of knightly fame
He went to Arthur's court, and played his part
So rarely, and displayed so frank a heart,
That what with all his charms of look and limb,
The Queen Geneura fell in love with him :-
And here, with growing interest in her reading,
The princess, doubly fixed, was now proceeding.
Ready she sat with one hand to turn o'er The leaf, to which her thoughts ran on before, The other propping her white brow and throwing Its ringlets out, under the skylight glowing. So sat she fixed, and so observed was she Of one, who at the door stood tenderly,— Paulo,-who from a window seeing her
Go strait across the lawn, and guessing where,
Had thought she was in tears, and found, that day, His usual efforts vain to keep away.
"May I come in?" said he :-it made her start,— That smiling voice;—she coloured, pressed her heart
A moment, as for breath, and then with free
And usual tone said, "O yes,certainly."
There's apt to be, at conscious times like these,
An affectation of a bright-eyed ease,
An air of something quite serene and sure,
As if to seem so, was to be, secure.
With this the lovers met, with this they spoke,
With this they sat down to the self-same book,
And Paulo, by degrees, gently embraced
With one permitted arm her lovely waist;
And both their cheeks, like peaches on a tree,
Leaned with a touch together, thrillingly,
And o'er the book they hung, and nothing said,
And every lingering page grew longer as they read.
As thus they sat, and felt with leaps of heart Their colour change, they came upon the part Where fond Geneura, with her flame long nurst, Smiled upon Launcelot, when he kissed her first :That touch, at last, through every fibre slid; And Paulo turned, scarce knowing what he did, Only he felt he could no more dissemble,
And kissed her, mouth to mouth, all in a tremble. Sad were those hearts, and sweet was that long
Sacred be love from sight, whate'er it is.
The world was all forgot, the struggle o'er, Desperate the joy.—That day they read no more.
HOW THE BRIDE RETURNED TO RAVENNA.
It has surprised me often, as I write,
That I, who have of late known small delight,
Should thus pursue a mournful theme, and make
My very solace of distress partake;
And I have longed sometimes, I must confess,
To start at once from notes of wretchedness,
And in a key would make you rise and dance,
Strike up a blithe defiance to mischance.
But work begun, an interest in it, shame
At turning coward to the thoughts I frame,
Necessity to keep firm face on sorrow,
Some flattering, sweet-lipped question every
And above all, the poet's task divine
Of making tears themselves look up and shine,
And turning to a charm the sorrow past,
Have held me on, and shall do to the last.
Sorrow, to him who has a true touched ear, Is but the discord of a warbling sphere, A lurking contrast, which though harsh it be, Distils the next note more deliciously. E'en tales like this, founded on real woe, From bitter seed to balmy fruitage grow: The woe was earthly, fugitive, is past; The song that sweetens it, may always last. And even they, whose shattered hearts and frames Make them unhappiest of poetic names,
What are they, if they know their calling high,
But crushed perfumes, exhaling to the sky?
Or weeping clouds, that but a while are seen,
Yet keep the earth they haste to, bright and
green ?
Once, and but once,-nor with a scornful face Tried worth will hear,-that scene again took
Partly by chance they met, partly to see
The spot where they had last gone smilingly,
But most, from failure of all self-support ;-
And oh! the meeting in that loved resort!
No peevishness there was, no loud distress,
No mean, recriminating selfishness;
But a mute gush of hiding tears from one
Clasped to the core of him, who yet shed none,-
And self-accusings then, which he began,
And into which her tearful sweetness ran;
And then kind looks, with meeting eyes again,
Starting to deprecate the other's pain;
Till half persuasions they could scarce do wrong,
And sudden sense of wretchedness, more strong,
And-why should I add more?-again they parted,
He doubly torn for her, and she nigh broken-
hearted.
She never ventured in that spot again; And Paulo knew it, but could not refrain; He went again one day; and how it looked The calm old shade !-His presence felt rebuked. It seemed as if the hopes of his young heart, His kindness, and his generous scorn of art,
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