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;
From all the churches on our way
A merry peal is ringing;
The pall that clothes my cold remains,
Instead of boars and dragons,
Is blazoned o'er with darts and chains,
With lutes, and flowers, and flagons:
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,
For want of holy ritual,
My own least holy verses:
The sculptor carves a laurel leaf,
And writes my name and story;
And silent nature in her grief
Seems dreaming of my glory:
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;
But life, she swears, returned again
With the first kiss she gave me :
You who deem that life is sorrow,
Weep for me again to-morrow!
MANY a beaming brow I've known,
And many a dazzling eye,
And I've listened to many a melting tone
In magic fleeting by;
And mine was never a heart of stone,
And yet my heart hath given to none
The tribute of a sigh;
For Fancy's wild and witching mirth
Was dearer than aught I found on earth,
And the fairest forms I ever knew
Were far less fair than-L'Inconnue !
Many an eye that once was bright
Is dark to-day in gloom;
Many a voice that once was light
Is silent in the tomb;
Many a flower that once was dight
In beauty's most entrancing might
Hath faded in its bloom;
But she is still as fair and gay
As if she had sprung to life to-day;
A ceaseless tone and a deathless hue
Wild Fancy hath given to-L'Inconnue
Many an eye of piercing jet
Hath only gleamed to grieve me;
Many a fairy form I've met,
But none have wept to leave me ;
When all forsake, and all forget,
One pleasant dream shall haunt me yet,
One hope shall not deceive me;
For oh! when all beside is past,
Fancy is found our friend at last;
And the faith is firm and the love is true
Which are vowed by the lips of—L'Inconnue!
(From Lidean's Love.)
"O LOVE! O beauteous Love!
Thy home is made for all sweet things,
A dwelling for thine own soft dove
And souls as spotless as her wings;
There summer ceases never :
The trees are rich with luscious fruits,
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 Which seems so fair, so far above The world where woes and sorrows are ; But could we wander thither, There's nothing but another earth As dark and restless as our own, Where misery is child of mirth, And every heart is born to groan, And every flower to wither!"
We did not meet in courtly hall,
Where birth and beauty throng,
Where Luxury holds festival,
And Wit awakes the song;
We met where darker spirits meet,
In the home of sin and shame,
Where Satan shows his cloven feet
And hides his titled name:
And she knew that she could not be, Love,
What once she might have been ;
But she was kind to me, Love,
My pretty Josephine.
We did not part beneath the sky,
As warmer lovers part;
Where night conceals the glistening eye,
But not the throbbing heart;
We parted on the spot of ground
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,
But merrily rides my bark, Love,
Good night, my Josephine ! "
She did not speak of ring or vow,
But filled the cup of wine,
And took the roses from her brow
To make a wreath for mine;
And bade me, when the gale should lift
My light skiff o'er the wave,
To think as little of the gift
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:
I would not, could I choose, restore
The fondness, or the flowers.
Yet oft their withered witchery
Revives its wonted thrill,
Remembered, not with passion's sigh,
But, oh! remembered still;
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