Thou troublest me with strange alarms
Smiles hast thou, bright ones of thy own;
I cannot keep thee in my arms;
For they confound me ; — where — where is That last, that sweetest smile of his?
O how I love thee! we will stay
Together here this one half-day.
My sister's child, who bears my name,
From France to sheltering England came ;
She with her mother crossed the sea;
The babe and mother near me dwell:
Yet does my yearning heart to thee
Turn rather, though I love her well:
Rest, little Stranger, rest thee here!
Never was any child more dear!
- I cannot help it; ill intent I've none, my pretty Innocent!
I know they do thee wrong,
These tears – and my poor idle tongue.
O what a kiss was that! my cheek
How cold it is! but thou art good;
Thine eyes are on me,
I think, to help me if they could.
Blessings upon that soft, warm face!
My heart again is in its place!
While thou art mine, my little Love,
This cannot be a sorrowful grove;
Contentment, hope, and mother's glee,
I seem to find them all in thee:
Here's grass to play with, here are flowers;
I'll call thee by my darling's name;
Thou hast, I think, a look of ours,
Thy features seem to me the same;
His little sister thou shalt be;
And, when once more my home I see,
I'll tell him many tales of thee.
The following tale was written as an episode, in a work from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The facts are true; no invention as to these has been exercised, as none was needed.
O HAPPY time of youthful lovers, (thus
My story may begin,) O balmy time,
In which a love-knot on a lady's brow
Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven!
To such inheritance of blessed fancy
(Fancy that sports more desperately with minds Than ever fortune hath been known to do)
The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years
Whose progress had a little overstepped
His stripling prime. A town of small repute,
Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne,
Was the Youth's birthplace. There he wooed a
Maid
Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit
With answering vows. Plebeian was the stock, Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock,
From which her graces and her honors sprung: And hence the father of the enamored Youth, With haughty indignation, spurned the thought Of such alliance. From their cradles up,
With but a step between their several homes,
Twins had they been in pleasure; after strife
And petty quarrels, had grown fond again;
Each other's advocate, each other's stay;
And, in their happiest moments, not content,
If more divided than a sportive pair
Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering
Within the eddy of a common blast,
Or hidden only by the concave depth
Of neighboring billows from each other's sight.
Thus, not without concurrence of an age
Unknown to memory, was an earnest given
By ready nature for a life of love,
For endless constancy, and placid truth;
But whatsoe'er of such rare treasure lay
Reserved, had fate permitted, for support
Of their maturer years, his
present mind Was under fascination; he beheld
A vision, and adored the thing he saw.
Arabian fiction never filled the world
With half the wonders that were wrought for him.
Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring;
Life turned the meanest of her implements,
Before his eyes, to price above all gold;
The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine ;
Her chamber-window did surpass in glory
The portals of the dawn; all paradise
Could, by the simple opening of a door,
Let itself in upon him:- pathways, walks,
Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,
Surcharged, within him, overblest to move
Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world
To its dull round of ordinary cares;
A man too happy for mortality!
So passed the time, till, whether through effect Of some unguarded moment that dissolved
ah, speak it, think it not!
Deem rather that the fervent Youth, who saw
So many bars between his present state
And the dear haven where he wished to be
In honorable wedlock with his Love,
Was in his judgment tempted to decline
To perilous weakness, and intrust his cause
To nature for a happy end of all;
Deem that by such fond hope the Youth was swayed,
And bear with their transgression, when I add That Julia, wanting yet the name of wife, Carried about her for a secret grief
The promise of a mother.
The threatened shame, the parents of the Maid
Found means to hurry her away by night,
And unforewarned, that in some distant spot
She might remain shrouded in privacy,
Until the babe was born. When morning came,
The Lover, thus bereft, stung with his loss,
And all uncertain whither he should turn,
Chafed like a wild beast in the toils
Discovering traces of the fugitives,
Their steps he followed to the Maid's retreat.
Easily may the sequel be divined, -
Walks to and fro, watchings at every hour;
And the fair Captive, who, whene'er she may,
Is busy at her casement as the swallow
Fluttering its pinions, almost within reach,
About the pendent nest, did thus espy
Her Lover! thence a stolen interview,
Accomplished under friendly shade of night.
I pass the raptures of the pair; - such theme Is, by innumerable poets, touched In more delightful verse than skill of mine Could fashion; chiefly by that darling bard Who told of Juliet and her Romeo,
And of the lark's note heard before its time,
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