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126

TREASURES OF THE DEEP.

Give back the lost and lovely!-Those for whom

The place was kept at board and hearth so long; The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,

And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown. -But all is not thy own!

THE RETURN FROM INDIA.

I CAME; but they had passed away,
The fair in form, the pure in mind;
And, like a stricken deer, I stray

Where all are strange, and none are kind;
Kind to the worn and wearied soul,

That pants, that struggles for repose: O! that my steps had reached the goal Where earthly sighs and sorrows close.

Years have passed o'er me, like a dream
That leaves no trace on memory's page:
I look around me, and I seem

Some relic of a former age.
Alone, as in a stranger-clime,

Where stranger-voices mock my ear; I mark the lagging course of time, Without a wish-a hope-a fear!

Yet I had hopes-and they are fled;
And I had fears were all too true:
My wishes, too!-but they are dead,
And what have I with life to do?

'Tis but to bear a weary load,

I may not, dare not cast away; To sigh for one small, still abode, Where I may sleep as sweet as they :

As they, the loveliest of their race,
Whose grassy tombs my sorrows steep;
Whose worth my soul delights to trace-
Whose very loss 'tis sweet to weep;
To weep beneath the silent moon,

With none to chide, to hear, to see.
Life can bestow no dearer boon

On one whom death disdains to free.

I leave a world that knows me not,
To hold communion with the dead;
And fancy consecrates the spot,

Where fancy's softest dreams are shed.
I see each shade, all silvery white-
I hear each spirit's melting sigh;
I turn to clasp those forms of light,
And the pale morning chills my eye.

But soon the last dim morn shall rise, The lamp of life burns feebly now,— When stranger hands shall close my eyes, And smooth my cold and dewy brow. Unknown I lived-so let me die;

Nor stone, nor monumental cross, Tell where his nameless ashes lie,

Who sighed for gold, and found it dross.

STANZAS.

WE met but in one giddy dance;
Good-night joined hands with greeting;
And twenty thousand things may chance,
Before our second meeting:
For, oh! I have been often told
That all the world grows older,
And hearts and hopes, to-day so cold,
To-morrow must be colder !

If I have never touched the string
Beneath your window, dear one,
And never said a civil thing,

When you were by to hear one.-
If I have made no rhymes about
Those looks which conquer stoics,
And heard those angel tones, without
One fit of fair heroics,-

Yet do not, though the world's cold school
Some bitter truths has taught me,
Oh, do not think me quite the fool

Which kinder friends have thought me;
There is one charm I still could feel,
If no one laughed at feeling,-
One dream my lute could still reveal,
If it were worth revealing!

But Folly little recks what name
Of friend or foe she handles,
When Merriment directs the game,
And Midnight dims the candles;
I know that Folly's breath is weak,
And scarcely stirs a feather,
But, yet, I will not have her speak
Your name and mine together!

Farewell!-Oh, life is dark and light,
Half rapture and half sorrow;
My heart is very full to-night,
My cup shall be, to-morrow;
But they shall never know from me,
On any one condition,

Whose health makes bright my burgundy,
Whose beauty was my vision.

REPROACH ME NOT.

OH! gentle shade,-reproach me not,
For hours of mirth too late gone by!
Thy loveliness is ne'er forgot,

However wild the revelry.

For, o'er the silent goblet, thou

Art still remembered, and a cloud Comes o'er my heart, and o'er my brow; And I am lone, while all are loud.

Reproach me not,-Reproach me not,
For mingling in the noisy scene!
Mine is, indeed, a gloomy lot,

To think on joys which but have been ;
To meditate on woes, which yet

Must haunt my life, and speed my fall!
Some minds would struggle to forget,
But mine would fain remember all!

I think on thee,-I think and sigh,—
Though thoughts are sad, and sighs are vain!
There's something in thy memory,

That gives a loveliness to pain;

130

REPROACH ME NOT.

But yet, ah! gentle saint, forgive

The faults this wretched breast hath known! Had fate allowed thee but to live,

Those shadowing faults had ne'er been shown.

Thy friends are fading from my sight,
But from my mind they ne'er depart?
They leave behind them in their flight,
Their images upon my heart;—
And better 'twere that all should go
From this dark world, since thou art gone!
I need no friend to share my woe !—
I love to weep apart,-alone.

Thy picture! It is life, health,-love,-
To gaze upon that eye,-that cheek,-
Those lips, which even in fancy move-
Which fancy teaches even to speak.
Oh! I have hung so long at night,

O'er thy still 'semblance, charmed from pain, That I have thought the living light

Came beaming from those eyes again!

In my dark heart thy image glows,
In shape and light divinely fair;-

Youth sketched the form, when free from woes,
And faithful memory placed it there.
In revelry 'tis still with me ;-

In loneliness 'tis ne'er forgot,

My heart beats still the same to thee:-
Reproach me not !-Reproach me not!

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