VIOLA.

BY CHARLES WHITEHEAD.

ONE summer's day, while summer still was young,And day ne'er yet put on a lovelier guise ;

For all the splendour that in air was hung

Was borrowed equally from earth and skies;
And herb and flower yet wore their newest dyes;
Vincenzo to a shady forest hied,

As the tired worldling to the country hies,

To speculate on sweets as yet untried,

Then with new strength returns to scoff at and deride.

Long had he walked in paths of deepest shade,
Save when some giddy breath of zephyr blew,
And the thick gloom of woven boughs forbade,
And on the grass a checquered radiance threw,
Dancing with nimble change-for ever new;
Long had he walked-until at length a scene,
Opening between the trees, surprised his view;
A softened spot of deep and silent green,

As there no human step had till that moment been.

Y

Here silence dwelt in her religious home, Which the glad song of birds more sacred kept; And nothing seemed as it could thither come Which sadness knew, or e'er in sorrow wept; Here lazily the glowing noontide slept; The wavering butterfly his beauty took, Where far away the honeyed woodbine crept; And Nature's placid moralist, a brook, Flowed gently on, wherein fair lilies bent to look.

Turning half round, that he might so include, Even at a glance, what but in part before He saw of this delightful solitude, Behold! what vision do his eyes explore? A flowery bank a fair young creature bore, Fallen softly in that pleasant place asleep; By grateful boughs of olive shadowed o'er : With breath suppressed-his heart began to leap, As tip-toe to the spot his thrilling footsteps creep.

What mortal beauty ever met his gaze
Could be, by envy's self, compared with her?
The sighing of the soft air, as it strays,
Her clustered auburn ringlets scarcely stir,
Which on her brow a lovelier grace confer.
Vincenzo gazed-nor wondered how or whence,
So sudden he became the worshipper

Of virtue, which was yet but innocence,

And all the fairy gifts that Nature's hands dispense.

Alas! how soon is love religion made

In hearts which have the froward god forsworn?
Still constant, unrequited or repaid,

To tenderness devoted, or to scorn;

Say, where is flown the heart of yester-morn? No sooner met the youth those waking eyes That seemed twin stars of beauty newly born, Than in his breast commenced the reign of sighs, And all the busy thoughts that cunning hopes devise.

But wherefore tell how soon two hearts are knit,
That in strict unison together beat?

There never yet was verse of poet writ,
Since high Parnassus was the Muses' seat,
That did not every change of love repeat,
And all the subtle arts fond lovers use;
The certain accident by which they meet,
And the sweet labyrinths and mazy clues
That baffle and perplex my less devoted muse.

The purity of love was never given
More sacredly, than Viola bestowed

All of her heart that was not yet of heaven,
So deep a passion in her bosom glowed.
And what, if from her bosom feelings flowed
That seldom have from mortal creature sprung,

The home of virtue is the heart's abode;

And from a shrine so beautiful and young

All rapture has been drawn that minstrels e'er have sung.

So past a year-too long for happiness,
When misery her slipshod step pursues;
For hoarded woe on all that now doth bless,
Is trebly wreaked on all we are to lose.
When storms are o’er, think ye, the sun imbues
The steadfast cloud with lasting colours warm?
How then, out of her thin and shadowy hues,
Shall happiness a bow enduring form,

When her aye-changing arch anticipates the storm ?

Unbind the eyes of love, and let him go—
And fling his fatal quiver to the wind;
For never yet he came, but coming woe
Upon the earth, his shadow, crept behind.
Oh! where shall time two happy lovers find?
Unless he linger o'er some grass-grown spot,
Where, haply, in each other's arms reclined,
The cold fast sleep that stirs and changes not,
They sleep in placid guise, by all the world forgot.

On Viola's soft cheek the breeze that played,
Waked not the rose as it was wont to do,
Which in its waning beauty 'gan to fade
And change into a pale and tender hue,
Then died into a shadow where it grew;
And the warm lustre sleeping in her eyes,
The blue of heaven, but yet more heavenly blue,
Had rendered back its softness to the skies;

For cradled in those orbs death newborn, sleeping lies.