Ah! Lisbon dreams not of the day -
Pleased with her painted scenes
When all her towers shall slide away
As now these canvas screens !

The spring has passed, the summer fled,

And yet they linger still,

Though autumn's rustling leaves have spread

The flank of Cintra's hill.

The town has learned their Saxon name,
And touched their English gold,

Nor tale of doubt nor hint of blame

From over sea is told.

Three hours the first November dawn

Has climbed with feeble ray
Through mists like heavy curtains drawn
Before the darkened day.

How still the muffled echoes sleep!

Hark! hark! a hollow sound,

A noise like chariots rumbling deep

Beneath the solid ground.

The channel lifts, the water slides

And bares its bar of sand,

Anon a mountain billow strides

And crashes o'er the land.

The turrets lean, the steeples reel
Like masts on ocean's swell,

And clash a long discordant peal,
The death-doomed city's knell.

The pavement bursts, the earth upheaves
Beneath the staggering town!

The turrets crack the castle cleaves -
The spires come rushing down.

Around, the lurid mountains glow

With strange unearthly gleams;

While black abysses gape below,
Then close in jagged seams.

The earth has folded like a wave,
And thrice a thousand score,

Clasped, shroudless, in their closing grave,
The sun shall see no more!

And all is over.

Street and square

In ruined heaps are piled;

Ah! where is she, so frail, so fair,

Amid the tumult wild?

Unscathed, she treads the wreck-piled street,

Whose narrow gaps afford

A pathway for her bleeding feet,

To seek her absent lord.

A temple's broken walls arrest
Her wild and wandering eyes;
Beneath its shattered portal pressed,
Her lord unconscious lies.

The power that living hearts obey
Shall lifeless blocks withstand?

Love led her footsteps where he lay,
Love nerves her woman's hand:

One cry,

the marble shaft she grasps,

Up heaves the ponderous stone : —

He breathes, her fainting form he clasps,

Her life has bought his own !

PART FIFTH.

THE REWARD.

How like the starless night of death
Our being's brief eclipse,

When faltering heart and failing breath
Have bleached the fading lips!

She lives! What guerdon shall repay
His debt of ransomed life?

One word can charm all wrongs away,—

The sacred name of WIFE!

The love that won her girlish charms
Must shield her matron fame,

And write beneath the Frankland arms

The village beauty's name.

Go, call the priest! no vain delay

Shall dim the sacred ring!

Who knows what change the passing day The fleeting hour, may bring?

Before the holy altar bent,

There kneels a goodly pair; A stately man, of high descent, A woman, passing fair.

No jewels lend the blinding sheen
That meaner beauty needs,
But on her bosom heaves unseen

A string of golden beads.

No more her faithful heart shall bear
Those griefs so meekly borne,-
The passing sneer, the freezing stare,
The icy look of scorn;

No more the blue-eyed English dames
Their haughty lips shall curl,
Whene'er a hissing whisper names

The poor New-England girl.