SONNET. FROM THE PORTUGUESE OF SEMEDO. It is a fearful night; a feeble glare Streams from the sick moon in the o'erclouded sky; The ridgy billows, with a mighty cry, Rush on the foamy beaches wild and bare; No bark the madness of the waves will dare; The sailors sleep; the winds are loud and high; Ah, peerless Laura! for whose love I die, As thus, in bitterness of heart, I cried, To my poor bark she sprang with footstep light, I never saw so beautiful a night. SONG. FROM THE SPANISH OF IGLESIAS. ALEXIS calls me cruel; The rifted crags that hold The gathered ice of winter, He says, are not more cold. When even the very blossoms Around the fountain's brim, And forest walks, can witness The love I bear to him. I would that I could utter Nor wrong my virgin fame. Alas! to seize the moment When heart inclines to heart, And press a suit with passion, Is not a woman's part. If man comes not to gather The roses where they stand, They fade among their foliage; They cannot seek his hand. THE COUNT OF GREIERS. FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. Ar morn the Count of Greiers before his castle stands; "Oh, greenest of the valleys, how shall I come to thee! He hears a sound of timbrels, and suddenly appear The youngest of the maidens, slim as a spray of spring, Then hand in hand departing, with dance and roundelay, Through hamlet after hamlet, they lead the Count away. They dance through wood and meadow, they dance across the linn, Till the mighty Alpine summits have shut the music in. The second morn is risen, and now the third is come; Where stays the Count of Greiers? has he forgot his home? Again the evening closes, in thick and sultry air; There's thunder on the mountains, the storm is gathering there. The cloud has shed its waters, the brook comes swollen down; "Here am I cast by tempests far from your mountain dell. "Farewell, with thy glad dwellers, green vale among the rocks! Farewell the swift sweet moments, in which I watched thy flocks! Why rocked they not my cradle in that delicious spot, That garden of the happy, where Heaven endures me not? |