'Tis so fair! would my bite, if I bit it, draw blood? Will it cry if I hurt it? or scold if I kiss? Is it made, with its beauty, of wax or of wood? - Is it worth while to guess at all this? THE CHESS-BOARD. My little love, do you remember, Ah, still I see your soft white hand Brave Pawns in valiant battle stand. Our fingers touch; our glances meet, Against my cheek; your bosom sweet Ah me! the little battle 's done, Disperst is all its chivalry; Full many a move, since then, have we 'Mid life's perplexing checkers made, And many a game with Fortune played, — This, this at least if this alone; That never, never, nevermore, And, eyes exchanging warmth with eyes, FROM LUCILE.' 19 FROM CANTO IV. ALAS, friend! what boots it, a stone at his head And a brass on his breast, — when a man is once dead? Ay! were fame the sole guerdon, poor guerdon were then Theirs who, stripping life bare, stand forth models for men. The reformer's? - a creed by posterity learnt A century after its author is burnt! The poet's? a laurel that hides the bald brow It hath blighted! The painter's?— ask Raphael now a name The soldier's?-three lines on the cold Abbey pavement! All it ends in, thrice better, Neaera, it were And be loved, while the roses yet bloom overhead, Than to sit by the lone hearth, and think the long thought, With fair illustration, and erudite note, The song which the poet in bitterness wrote, The joy of the genius is theirs, whilst they miss The grief of the man: Tasso's song, — not his madness ! Dante's dreams, — not his waking to exile and sadness! Milton's music,- but not Milton's blindness!—yet rise, My Milton, and answer, with those noble eyes Which the glory of heaven hath blinded to earth! Say the life, in the living it, savors of worth: And Shakespeare, though all Shakespeares's writings were lost, And his genius, though never a trace of it crossed In the isle with Miranda, with Hamlet have felt All that Hamlet hath uttered, and haply where pure On its death-bed wronged Love lay, have moaned with the Moor! EMILY PFEIFFER. BROKEN LIGHT. It was cruel of them to part Two hearts in the gladsome spring, Two lovers' hearts that had just burst forth Cruel, but only half Had they known how to do us wrong, They had barred the way of the odorous May, They had shut out the wild bird's song. Your kisses were so embalmed With spices of beech and fir, That they haunt my lips in the dead o' the night, If the night-winds do but stir; When I rise with the rising dawn, To let in the dewy south, Like a fountain spray, or the pride of the day, They fall on my thirsty mouth. They should never have let our love Abroad in the wild free woods, If they meant it to slumber on, cold and tame, They should never have let it hide Or the upturned arch of the tender larch Now the young and passionate year Is no longer itself, but you; Its conniving woods, with their raptures and thrills, You have leavened them through and through. The troubadour nightingale And the dove that o'erbends the bough, Have both learnt, and teach, the trick of your speech, As they echo it vow for vow. My heart is heavy with scorn, Mine eyes with impatient tears, But the heaven looks blue through the cherry-blooms, And preaches away my fears! From the burning bush of the gorse, Alive with murmurous' sound, I hear a voice, and it says, Rejoice!' I stand as on holy ground. O flower of life! O Love! God's love is at thy root; They may dim thy glory, but cannot blight Or hinder thy golden fruit. Yet all the same, I am mad, However the end may fall, That they dare to wring, in the gladsome spring, TO NATURE. IN HER ASCRIBED CHARACTER OF UNMEANING AND ALL- O NATURE! thou whom I have thought to love, |