I searched, in my despair,

Sunny noon and midnight air;

I could not drive away the thought that you were lingering there.
Oh, many and many a winter night I sat when you were gone,
My worn face buried in my hands, beside the fire alone,

Within the dripping church-yard, the rain plashing on your stone,
You were sleeping, Barbara!

'Mong angels, do you think

Of the precious golden link

I clasped around your happy arm while sitting by yon brink?
Or when that night of gliding dance, of laughter and guitars,
Was emptied of its music, and we watched, through latticed bars,
The silent midnight heaven creeping o'er us with its stars,
Till the day broke, Barbara?

In the years I've changed;

Wild and far my heart hath ranged,

And many sins and errors now have been on me avenged;
But to you I have been faithful, whatsoever good I lacked:
I loved you, and above my life still hangs that love intact –
Your love the trembling rainbow, I the reckless cataract

Still I love you, Barbara!

Yet, love, I am unblest;
With many doubts opprest,

I wander like a desert wind, without a place of rest.

Could I but win you for an hour from off that starry shore,
The hunger of my soul were stilled, for Death hath told you more
Than the melancholy world doth know; things deeper than all lore.
You could teach me, Barbara!

In vain, in vain, in vain!

You will never come again!

There droops upon the dreary hills a mournful fringe of rain;
The gloaming closes slowly round, loud winds are in the tree,
Round selfish shores forever moans the hurt and wounded sea,
There is no rest upon the earth, peace is with Death and thee,
Barbara!

Black Labor draws his weary waves
Into their secret moaning caves;
But, with the morning light,
That sea again will overflow
With a long, weary sound of woe,
Again to faint in night.
Wave am I in that sea of woes,

A sunbeam like an angel's sword
Shivers upon a spire.

Thus have I watched thee, Terror!
Dream!

While the blue night crept up the
stream.

Which, night and morning, ebbs and The wild train plunges in the hills,

flows.

I dwelt within a gloomy court,
Wherein did never sunbeam sport;

Yet there my heart was stirred-
My very blood did dance and thrill,
When on my narrow window-sill
Spring lighted like a bird.
Poor flowers! I watched them pine
for weeks,

With leaves as pale as human cheeks.

Afar, one summer, I was borne;
Through golden vapors of the morn
I heard the hills of sheep:
I trod with a wild ecstasy
The bright fringe of the living sea:
And on a ruined keep

I sat, and watched an endless plain
Blacken beneath the gloom of rain.

Oh, fair the lightly-sprinkled waste,
O'er which a laughing shower has
raced!

Oh, fair the April shoots!
Oh, fair the woods on summer days,
While a blue hyacinthine haze

Is dreaming round the roots!
In thee, O city! I discern
Another beauty, sad and stern.

Draw thy fierce streams of blindingore,
Smite on a thousand anvils, roar
Down to the harbor-bars;
Smoulder in smoky sunsets, flare
On rainy nights; with street

square

Lie empty to the stars.
From terrace proud to alley base
I know thee as my mother's face.

and

When sunset bathes thee in his gold, In wreaths of bronze thy sides are rolled,

Thy smoke is dusky fire;

He shrieks across the midnight rills;
Streams through the shifting glare,
The roar and flap of foundry fires,
That shake with light the sleeping
shires;

And on the moorlands bare
He sees afar a crown of light
Hang o'er thee in the hollow night.

At midnight, when thy suburbs lie
As silent as a noonday sky

When larks with heat are mute,
I love to linger on thy bridge,
All lonely as a mountain ridge,

Disturbed but by my foot;

While the black lazy stream beneath
Steals from its far-off wilds of heath.

And through thy heart as through a dream,

Flows on that black disdainful
stream;

All scornfully it flows,
Between the huddled gloom of masts,
Silent as pines unvexed by blasts -

'Tween lamps in streaming rows,
O wondrous sight! O stream of
dread!

O long, dark river of the dead!

Afar, the banner of the year
Unfurls: but dimly prisoned here,
'Tis only when I greet
A dropt rose lying in my way,
A butterfly that flutters gay
Athwart the noisy street.

I know the happy Summer smiles
Around thy suburbs, miles on miles.

'Twere neither pæan now, nor dirge,
The flash and thunder of the surge

On flat sands wide and bare;
No haunting joy or anguish dwells
In the green light of sunny dells,
Or in the starry air.

And, from the glory round thee Alike to me the desert flower,

poured,

The rainbow laughingo'er the shower.

CHARLOTTE SMITH.

FLORENCE SMITH.

|In her sluggish old veins 'tis the warm rich blood

The old mother-monster! how soundly she sleeps!

Come! nearest her heart, where the strong life leaps —

We drink, we bathe in the flood!

Lying low at my threshold - I bid thee depart!

Thou shalt dog my footsteps no

Wilt thou bring me the faded flowers of my youth

With hands full of dead leaves, and lips full of lies

The hot sun has o'erflowed from his I CANNOT love thee, but I hold thee

While the cursed gold clings to my I am so lonely, and the end draws