I grasp'd him, Father, all the while
With shaking hand, and feverish smile,
And said my jest, and sang my song,
And laugh'd my laughter, loud and long,
Until his glass was dry!

"Though he was rich, and very old,

I did not touch a grain of gold,

But the blood I drank from the bubbling vein
Hath left on my lip a purple stain."

"My son! my son! for this thou hast done, Though the sands of thy life for aye should run,'

The merry monk did say;

Though thine eye be bright, and thine heart be light,
Hot spirits shall haunt thee all the night,
Blue devils all the day."

The thunders of the Church were ended,
Back on his way the Templar wended;
But the name of him the Templar slew
Was more than the Inquisition knew.

V.

My First, in torrents bleak and black,
Was rushing from the sky,

When, with my Second at his back,
Young Cupid wandered by:

"Now take me in; the moon hath passed; I pray ye, take me in!

The lightnings flash, the hail falls fast,

All Hades rides the thunder-blast;
I'm dripping to the skin!"

"I know thee well, thy songs and sighs; A wicked god thou art,

And yet most welcome to the eyes,
Most witching to the heart!"
The wanderer prayed another prayer,

And shook his drooping wing;

The lover bade him enter there,

And wrung my First from out his hair,

And dried my Second's string.

And therefore,―(so the urchin swore, By Styx, the fearful river,

And by the shafts his quiver bore,

And by his shining quiver,)

That Lover aye shall see my whole
In Life's tempestuous Heaven;
And when the lightnings cease to roll,
Shall fix thereon his dreaming soul

In the deep calm of even!

VOL. II.-17

VI.

THE Indian lover burst

From his lone cot by night; When Love hath lit my First, In hearts by Passion nurst,

Oh! who shall quench the light?

The Indian left the shore

He heard the night wind sing,

And curs'd the tardy oar,

And wish'd that he could soar,
Upon my Second's wing.

The blast came cold and damp,

But, all the voyage through,

I lent my lingering lamp
As o'er the marshy swamp

He paddled his canoe.

VII.

ENIGMA.

In other days, when hope was bright,
Ye spake to me of love and light,

Of endless spring, and cloudless weather,
And hearts that doted link'd together!

But now ye tell another tale,
That life is brief, and beauty frail,
That joy is dead, and fondness blighted,
And hearts that doted disunited!

Away! ye grieve and ye rejoice
In one unfelt, unfeeling voice;
And ye, like every friend below,
Are hollow in your joy and woe!