Verses from the Oldest Poolio | Page 5

hand has laid?Hot on the green flakes of the pine,?Beneath its narrow disk of shade;
As, through the flickering noontide glare,?She gazes on the rainbow chain?Of arches, lifting once in air?The rivers of the Roman's plain;--
Say, does her wandering eye recall?The mountain-current's icy wave,--?Or for the dead one tear let fall,?Whose founts are broken by their grave?
From stone to stone the ivy weaves?Her braided tracery's winding veil,?And lacing stalks and tangled leaves?Nod heavy in the drowsy gale.
And lightly floats the pendent vine,?That swings beneath her slender bow,?Arch answering arch,--whose rounded line?Seems mirrored in the wreath below.
How patient Nature smiles at Fame!?The weeds, that strewed the victor's way,?Feed on his dust to shroud his name,?Green where his proudest towers decay.
See, through that channel, empty now,?The scanty rain its tribute pours,--?Which cooled the lip and laved the brow?Of conquerors from a hundred shores.
Thus bending o'er the nation's bier,?Whose wants the captive earth supplied,?The dew of Memory's passing tear?Falls on the arches of her pride!
FROM A BACHELOR'S PRIVATE JOURNAL
SWEET Mary, I have never breathed?The love it were in vain to name;?Though round my heart a serpent wreathed,?I smiled, or strove to smile, the same.
Once more the pulse of Nature glows?With faster throb and fresher fire,?While music round her pathway flows,?Like echoes from a hidden lyre.
And is there none with me to share?The glories of the earth and sky??The eagle through the pathless air?Is followed by one burning eye.
Ah no! the cradled flowers may wake,?Again may flow the frozen sea,?From every cloud a star may break,--?There conies no second spring to me.
Go,--ere the painted toys of youth?Are crushed beneath the tread of years;?Ere visions have been chilled to truth,?And hopes are washed away in tears.
Go,--for I will not bid thee weep,--?Too soon my sorrows will be thine,?And evening's troubled air shall sweep?The incense from the broken shrine.
If Heaven can hear the dying tone?Of chords that soon will cease to thrill,?The prayer that Heaven has heard alone?May bless thee when those chords are still.
LA GRISETTE
As Clemence! when I saw thee last?Trip down the Rue de Seine,?And turning, when thy form had past,?I said, "We meet again,"--?I dreamed not in that idle glance?Thy latest image came,?And only left to memory's trance?A shadow and a name.
The few strange words my lips had taught?Thy timid voice to speak,?Their gentler signs, which often brought?Fresh roses to thy cheek,?The trailing of thy long loose hair?Bent o'er my couch of pain,?All, all returned, more sweet, more fair;?Oh, had we met again!
I walked where saint and virgin keep?The vigil lights of Heaven,?I knew that thou hadst woes to weep,?And sins to be forgiven;?I watched where Genevieve was laid,?I knelt by Mary's shrine,?Beside me low, soft voices prayed;?Alas! but where was thine?
And when the morning sun was bright,?When wind and wave were calm,?And flamed, in thousand-tinted light,?The rose of Notre Dame,?I wandered through the haunts of men,?From Boulevard to Quai,?Till, frowning o'er Saint Etienne,?The Pantheon's shadow lay.
In vain, in vain; we meet no more,?Nor dream what fates befall;?And long upon the stranger's shore?My voice on thee may call,?When years have clothed the line in moss?That tells thy name and days,?And withered, on thy simple cross,?The wreaths of Pere-la-Chaise!
OUR YANKEE GIRLS
LET greener lands and bluer skies,?If such the wide earth shows,?With fairer cheeks and brighter eyes,?Match us the star and rose;?The winds that lift the Georgian's veil,?Or wave Circassia's curls,?Waft to their shores the sultan's sail,--?Who buys our Yankee girls?
The gay grisette, whose fingers touch?Love's thousand chords so well;?The dark Italian, loving much,?But more than one can tell;?And England's fair-haired, blue-eyed dame,?Who binds her brow with pearls;--?Ye who have seen them, can they shame?Our own sweet Yankee girls?
And what if court or castle vaunt?Its children loftier born?--?Who heeds the silken tassel's flaunt?Beside the golden corn??They ask not for the dainty toil?Of ribboned knights and earls,?The daughters of the virgin soil,?Our freeborn Yankee girls!
By every hill whose stately pines?Wave their dark arms above?The home where some fair being shines,?To warm the wilds with love,?From barest rock to bleakest shore?Where farthest sail unfurls,?That stars and stripes are streaming o'er,--?God bless our Yankee girls!
L'INCONNUE
Is thy name Mary, maiden fair??Such should, methinks, its music be;?The sweetest name that mortals bear?Were best befitting thee;?And she to whom it once was given,?Was half of earth and half of heaven.
I hear thy voice, I see thy smile,?I look upon thy folded hair;?Ah! while we dream not they beguile,?Our hearts are in the snare;?And she who chains a wild bird's wing?Must start not if her captive sing.
So, lady, take the leaf that falls,?To all but thee unseen, unknown;?When evening shades thy silent walls,?Then read it all alone;?In stillness read, in darkness seal,?Forget, despise, but not reveal!
STANZAS
STRANGE! that one lightly whispered tone?Is far, far sweeter unto me,?Than all the sounds that kiss the earth,?Or breathe along the sea;?But, lady, when thy voice I greet,?Not