That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once,
In green and sunny glade,
There came, and looked him in the face, An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew, it was a fiend, This miserable Knight!
And how, unknowing what he did, He leap'd amid a murdʼrous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death The Lady of the Land;
And how she wept and clasped his knees, And how she tended him in vain- And ever strvoe to expiate
The scorn, that crazed his brain :
And that she nursed him in a cave; And how his madness went away When on the yellow forest leaves A dying man he lay ;
His dying words-But when I reached That tenderest strain of all the ditty, My falt❜ring voice and pausing harp Disturbed her soul with pity!
All impulses of soul and sense Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve,
The music, and the doleful tale, The rich and balmy eve;
And hopes, and fears that kindie hope An undistinguishable throng!
And gentle wishes long subdued, Subdued and cherished long!
She wept with pity and delight,
She blushed with love and maiden shame; And, like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.
Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside; As conscious of my look, she stepped- Then suddenly with timorous eye She fled to me and wept.
She half enclosed me with her arms, She pressed me with a meek embrace ; And bending back her head looked up, And gazed upon my face.
'Twas partly love, and partly fear, And partly 'twas a bashful art That I might rather feel than see The swelling of her heart.
I calmed her fears; and she was calm, And told her love with virgin pride; And so I won my Genevieve,
My bright and beauteous bride!
THE FOSTER-MOTHER'S TALE.
A NARRATION IN DRAMATIC BLANK VERSE.
But that entrance, Mother j
FOSTER-MOTHER.
Can no one hear? It is a perilous tale
FOSTER-MOTHER.
My husband's father told it me,
Poor old Leoni!-Angels rest his soul !
He was a woodman, and could fell and saw With lusty arm. You know that huge round beam Which props the hanging wall of the old chapel ; Beneath that tree, while yet it was a tree, He found a baby wrapt in mosses, lined
With thistle-beards, and such small locks of wool As hang on brambles. Well, he brought him home And reared him at the then Lord Velez' cost.
A pretty boy, but most unteachable
And so the babe grew up a pretty boy,
And never learnt a prayer nor told a bead
But knew the names of birds, and mocked their notes,
And whistled, as he were a bird himself: And all the Autumn 'twas his only play
To gather seeds of wild flowers, and to plant them, With earth and water, on the stumps of trees. A friar, who sought for simples in the wood, A grey-haired man-he loved this little boy, The boy loved him-and, when the friar taught him He soon could write with the pen and from that time Lived chiefly at the convent or the castle.
So he became a very learned youth.
But. Oh! poor wretch-he read, and read, and read, Till his brain turned-and ere his twentieth year
He had unlawful thoughts of many things: And though he prayed, he never loved to pray With holy men, nor in a holy place- But yet his speech, it was so soft and sweet, The late Lord Velez ne'er was wearied with him.
And once, as by the north side of the chapel They stood together, chained in deep discourse, The earth heaved under them with such a groan, That the wall tottered, and had well-nigh fallen Right on their heads. My Lord was sorely frightened: A fever seized him, and he made confession
Of all the heretical and lawless talk
Which brought this judgment: so the youth was seized And cast into that cell. My husband's father Sobbed like a child-it almost broke his heart: And once as he was working near the cell He heard a voice distinctly; 'twas the youth's about green fields, Who sang a doleful song
How sweet it were on lake or wild savannah,
To hunt for food, and be a naked man, And wander up and down at liberty.
Leoni doted on the youth, and now
His love grew desperate; and defying death, He made that cunning entrance I described, And the young man escaped.
FOSTER-MOTHER.
He went on ship-board,
With those bold voyagers who made discovery
Of golden lands. Leoni's Went likewise; and when he returned to Spain, mad youth, He told Leoni, that the Soon after they arrived in that new world, In spite of his dissuasion, seized a boat, And, all alone, set sail by silent moonlight Up a great river, great as any sea,
And ne'er was heard of more: but 'tis supposed He lived and died among the savage men,
ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND, IN ANSWER TO A MELAN- CHOLY LETTER.
Away, those cloudy looks, that lab'ring sigh, The peevish offspring of a sickly hour!
Nor meanly thus complain of Fortune's pow'r, When the blind gamester throws a luckless die.
Yon setting sun flashes a mournful gleam
Behind those broken clouds, his stormy train; To-morrow shall the many colour'd main In brightness roll beneath his orient beam!
Wild as th' Autumnal gust, the hand of Time Flies o'er his mystic lyre: in shadowy dance Th' alternate groups of joy and grief advance Responsive to his varying strains sublime!
Bears on its wing each hour a load of fate. The swain, who lull'd by Seine's mild murmurs, led His weary oxen to their nightly shed, To-day may rule a tempest-troubled state.
Nor shall not Fortune, with a vengeful smile, Survey the sanguinary despot's might,
And haply hurl the pageant from his height, Unwept, to wander in some savage isle.
There shiv'ring sad, beneath the tempest's frown, Round his tir'd limbs to wrap the purple vest; And mix'd with nails and beads, an equal jest! Barter for food, the jewels of his crown.
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