The which I could not love the less

So lovely was the loneliness

Of a wild lake, with black rock bound,

And the tall pines that towered around.

But when the Night had thrown her pall
Upon that spot, as upon all,
And the mystic wind went by
Murmuring in melody—

Then-ah then I would awake

To the terror of the lone lake.

Yet that terror was not fright,

But a tremulous delight

A feeling not the jewelled mine

Could teach or bribe me to define

Nor Love-although the Love were thine.

Death was in that poisonous wave,

And in its gulf a fitting grave

For him who thence could solace bring

To his lone imagining―

Whose solitary soul could make

An Eden of that dim lake.

SONG.

SAW thee on thy bridal day

When a burning blush came o'er thee, Though happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee:

And in thine eye a kindling light

(Whatever it might be)

Was all on Earth my aching sight

Of Loveliness could see.

That blush, perhaps, was maiden shame

As such it well may pass―

Though its glow hath raised a fiercer flame

In the breast of him, alas!

Who saw thee on that bridal day,

When that deep blush would come o'er thee,

Though happiness around thee lay,

The world all love before thee.

TO M. L. S.

Fall who hail thy presence as the morning-
Of all to whom thine absence is the night-
The blotting utterly from out high heaven
The sacred sun-of all who, weeping, bless

thee

Hourly for hope-for life-ah! above all,
For the resurrection of deep-buried faith
In Truth-in Virtue-in Humanity-

Of all who, on Despair's unhallowed bed

Lying down to die, have suddenly arisen

At thy soft-murmured words, "Let there be light!"

At the soft-murmured words that were fulfilled

In the seraphic glancing of thine eyes

Of all who owe thee most-whose gratitude

Nearest resembles worship-oh, remember

The truest-the most fervently devoted,

And think that these weak lines are written by him—

By him who, as he pens them, thrills to think

His spirit is communing with an angel's.