:

'T is dark quick pattereth the flaw-blown sleet:
"This is no dream, my bride, my Madeline!”
"T is dark the icéd gusts still rave and beat:
"No dream, alas! alas! and woe is mine!
Porphyro will leave me here to fade and pine.
Cruel! what traitor could thee hither bring?
I curse not, for my heart is lost in thine,
Though thou forsakest a deceivéd thing –
A dove forlorn and lost with sick unprunéd wing."

"My Madeline! sweet dreamer! lovely bride!
Say, may I be for aye thy vassal blest?

Thy beauty's shield, heart-shaped and vermeil-dyed?
Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest
After so many hours of toil and quest,

A famished pilgrim, saved by miracle.
Though I have found, I will not rob thy nest
Saving of thy sweet self; if thou think'st well
To trust, fair Madeline, to no rude infidel.

"Hark! 't is an elfin storm from faery land,
Of haggard seeming, but a boon indeed:
Arise arise! the morning is at hand;-
The bloated wassailers will never heed: -
Let us away, my love, with happy speed;
There are no ears to hear, or eyes to see,
Drowned all in Rhenish and the sleepy mead:
Awake! arise! my love, and fearless be,

For o'er the southern moors I have a home for thee."

She hurried at his words, beset with fears,
For there were sleeping dragons all around,

At glaring watch, perhaps, with ready spears;
Down the wide stairs a darkling way they found,
In all the house was heard no human sound.
A chain-drooped lamp was flickering by each door;
The arras, rich with horsemen, hawk, and hound,
Fluttered in the besieging wind's uproar;

And the long carpets rose along the gusty floor.

They glide, like phantoms, into the wide hall!
Like phantoms to the iron porch they glide,
Where lay the Porter, in uneasy sprawl,
With a huge empty flagon by his side:

The wakeful bloodhound rose, and shook his hide,
But his sagacious eye an inmate owns :

By one, and one, the bolts full easy slide:The chains lie silent on the footworn stones; The key turns, and the door upon its hinges groans;

And they are gone: ay, ages long ago These lovers fled away into the storm. That night the Baron dreamt of many a woe, And all his warrior-guests, with shade and form Of witch, and demon, and large coffin-worm, Were long be-nightmared. Angela the old Died palsy-twitched, with meagre face deform: The Beadsman, after thousand aves told, For aye unsought-for slept among his ashes cold.

Ο

BY THOMAS MOORE.

NE morn a Peri at the gate

Of Eden stood, disconsolate;

And as she listened to the springs
Of life within, like music flowing,
And caught the light upon her wings
Through the half-open portal glowing,
She wept to think her recreant race
Should e'er have lost that glorious place!

"How happy," exclaimed this child of air, "Are the holy Spirits who wander there,

'Mid flowers that never shall fade or fall; Though mine are the gardens of earth and sea And the stars themselves have flowers for me,

One blossom of Heaven out-blooms them all.

"Though sunny the lake of cool Cashmere, With its plane-tree isle reflected clear,

And sweetly the founts of that valley fall; Though bright are the waters of Sing-su-hay,

And the golden floods that thitherward stray,

Yet

O, 't is only the Blest can say

How the waters of Heaven outshine them all!

Go, wing thy flight from star to star, From world to luminous world, as far

As the universe spreads its flaming wall: Take all the pleasures of all the spheres, And multiply each through endless years, One minute of Heaven is worth them all! "

The glorious angel, who was keeping
The Gates of Light, beheld her weeping;
Aud, as he nearer drew and listened
To her sad song, a tear-drop glistened
Within his eyelids, like the spray

From Eden's fountain, when it lies
On the blue flower, which - Brahmins say
Blooms nowhere but in Paradise.

"Nymph of a fair but erring line," Gently he said, “ one hope is thine. "T is written in the Book of Fate, The Peri yet may be forgiven,

Who brings to this eternal gate

The gift that is most dear to Heaven!

Go, seek it, and redeem thy sin,

'Tis sweet to let the pardoned in."

Rapidly as comets run

To the embraces of the Sun,

Fleeter than the starry brands
Flung at night from angel hands
At those dark and daring sprites
Who would climb the empyreal heights,
Down the blue vault the Peri flies,

And, lighted earthward by a glance
That just then broke from morning's eyes,
Hung hovering o'er our world's expanse.

But whither shall the Spirit go

To find this gift for Heaven? —“I know
The wealth," she cries, "of every urn
In which unnumbered rubies burn,
Beneath the pillars of Chilminar;

I know where the Isles of Perfume are,
Many a fathom down in the sea,
To the south of sun-bright Araby;
I know, too, where the Genii hid
The jewelled cup of their King Jamshid,
With life's elixir sparkling high, -

But gifts like these are not for the sky.
Where was there ever a gem that shone
Like the steps of Alla's wonderful throne?
And the Drops of Life - oh! what would they be
In the boundless Deep of Eternity?"

While thus she mused, her pinions fanned

The air of that sweet Indian land,
Whose air is balm; whose ocean spreads
O'er coral rocks, and amber beds;

Whose mountains, pregnant by the beam