One drinks my brightest Burgundy, Without a blush, before me; One brings a little rosary, And breathes a blessing o'er me; One finds my pretty chambermaid, And courts her in dumb crambo; Another sees the mutes arrayed With fife by way of flambeau : In your feasting and your fêting, Weep for me! my hearse is waiting. Was ever such a strange array ? The mourners all are singing ; A merry peal is ringing ; Instead of boars and dragons, Passers-by their heads are shaking ! Weep for me! my grave is making. And now they let my coffin fall; And one of them rehearses, My own least holy verses : And writes my name and story ; Just as I am made immortal, Weep for me !-they bar the portal. But Isabel, by accident, Was wandering by that minute ; She opened that dark monument, And found her slave within it; The clergy said the Mass in vain, The College could not save me; You who deem that life is sorrow, L'INCONNUE. MANY a beaming brow I've known, And many a dazzling eye, In magic fleeting by ; The tribute of a sigh; Many an eye that once was bright Is dark to-day in gloom ; Is silent in the tomb; Hath faded in its bloom; Many an eye of piercing jet Hath only gleamed to grieve me; But none have wept to leave me; One hope shall not deceive me; SONG. (From Lidean's Love.) “O Love! O beauteous Love! Thy home is made for all sweet things, There summer ceases never : The bowers are full of joyous throngs, And gales that come from Heaven's own lutes And rivulets whose streams are songs Go murmuring on for ever! O Love! O wretched Love! Thy home is made for bitter care ; And sounds are in thy myrtle grove Of late repentance, long despair, Of feigning and forsaking: Thy banquet is the doubt and fear That come we know not whence or why, The smile that hardly masks a tear, The laughter that is half a sigh, The heart that jests in breaking ! O Love ! O faithless Love! Thy home is like the roving star But could we wander thither, As dark and restless as our own, And every flower to wither!” JOSEPHINE. We did not meet in courtly hall, Where birth and beauty throng, And Wit awakes the song ; In the home of sin and shame, And hides his titled name : What once she might have been ; We did not part beneath the sky, As warmer lovers part; But not the throbbing heart; Where we first had laughed at love, And ever the jests were loud around, And the lamps were bright above :“ The heaven is very dark, Love, The blast is very keen, She did not speak of ring or vow, But filled the cup of wine, To make a wreath for mine ; My light skiff o'er the wave, As of the hand that gave :“Go gaily o'er the sea, Love, And find your own heart's queen ; And look not back to me, Love, Your humble Josephine !”. That garland breathes and blooms no more ; Past are those idle hours : The fondness, or the flowers. Revives its wonted thrill, Remembered, not with passion's sigh, But, oh! remembered still ; |