Verses from the Oldest Poolio | Page 5

it when the bridal wreath
Was woven for her brow;
She
watched the flower, as, day by day,
The leaflets curled and died;

But he who gave it never came
To claim her for his bride.
"Oh, many a summer's morning glow
Has lent the rose its ray,
And
many a winter's drifting snow
Has swept its bloom away;
But she
has kept that faithless pledge
To this, her winter hour,
And keeps it
still, herself alone,
And wasted like the flower."
Her pale lip quivered, and the light
Gleamed in her moistening
eyes;--
I asked her how she liked the tints
In those Castilian skies?

"She thought them misty,--'t was perhaps
Because she stood too
near;"
She turned away, and as she turned
I saw her wipe a tear.
A ROMAN AQUEDUCT
THE sun-browned girl, whose limbs recline
When noon her languid
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