A Love Story, by a Bushman | Page 4

slight form of Clarendon. The latter was very fair, and what we are accustomed to call English-looking. His hair almost, but not quite, flaxen, hung in thick curls over his forehead, and would have given an effeminate expression to the face, were it not for the peculiar flash of the clear blue eye.
"Come! Clarendon," said Emily, "I will impose a task. You have written twice in my album; once, years ago, and the second time on the eve of our parting. Come! you shall read us both effusions, and then write a sonnet to our happy meeting. Would that dear George were here now!"
Gage took up the book. It was a moderately-sized volume, bound in crimson velvet. It was the fashion to keep albums then. It glittered not in a binding of azure and gold, nor were its momentous secrets enclosed by one of Bramah's locks. The Spanish proverb says, "Tell me who you are with, and I will tell you what you are." Ours, in that album age, used to be, "Show me your scrap book, I will tell you your character." Emily's was not one commencing with--
"I never loved a dear gazelle!"
and ending with stanzas on the "Forget-me-not." It had not those hackneyed but beautiful lines addressed by Mr. Spencer to Lady Crewe--
"I stay'd too late: forgive the crime! Unheeded flew the hours; For noiseless falls the foot of Time. That only treads on flowers."
Nor contained it those sublime, but yet more common ones, on Sir John Moore's death; which lines, by the bye, have suffered more from that mischief-making, laughter-loving creature, Parody, than any lines we know. It was not one of these books. Nor was it the splendid scrap book, replete with superb engravings and proof-impression prints; nor at all allied to the sentimental one of a garrison flirt, containing locks of hair of at least five gentlemen, three of whom are officers in the army. Nor, lastly, was it of that genus which has vulgarity in its very title-page, and is here and there interspersed with devilish imps, or caricatured likenesses of the little proprietress, all done in most infinite humour, and marking the familiar friendship, of some half-dozen whiskered cubs, having what is technically called the run of the house. No! it was a repository for feeling and for memory, and, in its fair pages, presented an image of Emily's heart. Many of these were marked, it is true; and what human being's character is unchequered? But it was blotless; and the virgin page looks not so white as when the contrast of the sable ink is there.
Clarendon read aloud his first contribution--who knows it not? The very words form a music, and that music is Metastasio's,
"Placido zeffiretto, Se trovi il caro oggetto, Digli che sei sospiro Ma non gli dir di chi, Limpido ruscelletto, Se mai t'incontri in lei, Digli che pianto sei, Ma non le dir qual' eiglio Crescer ti fe cosi."
"And now, Emily! for my parting tribute--if I remember right, it was sorrowful enough."
Gage read, with tremulous voice, the following, which we will christen
THE FAREWELL.
I will not be the lightsome lark, That carols to the rising morn,-- I'd rather be some plaintive bird Lulling night's ear forlorn.
I will not be the green, green leaf, Mingling 'midst thousand leaves and flowers That shed their fairy charms around To deck Spring's joyous bowers.
I'd rather be the one red leaf, Waving 'midst Autumn's sombre groves:-- On the heart to breathe that sadness Which contemplation loves.
I will not be the morning ray, Dancing upon the river's crest, All light, all motion, when the stream Turns to the sun her breast.
I'd rather be the gentle shade, Lengthening as eve comes stealing on, And rest in pensive sadness there, When those bright rays are gone.
I will not be a smile to play Upon thy coral lip, and shed Around it sweetness, like the sun Risen from his crimson bed.
Oh, no! I'll be the tear that steals In pity from that eye of blue, Making the cheek more lovely red, Like rose-leaf dipp'd in dew.
I will not be remember'd when Mirth shall her pageant joys impart,-- A dream to sparkle in thine eye, Yet vanish from thy heart.
But when pensive sadness clouds thee, When thoughts, half pain, half pleasure, steal Upon the heart, and memory doth The shadowy past reveal.
When seems the bliss of former years,-- Too sweet, too pure, to feel again,-- And long lost hours, scenes, friends, return, Remember me, love--then!
"Ah, Clarendon! how often have I read those lines, and thought--but I will not think now! Here come the letters! Henry will soon be busy--I shall finish my drawing--and aunt will finish--no! she never can finish her tambour work. Take my portfolio and give me another contribution!" Gage now wrote "The Return," which we insert for