LOVE.

That sometimes from the savage den,

And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny glade,

There came and look'd him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;
And that he knew it was a fiend,
This miserable knight!

And that, unknowing what he did,
He leap'd amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The lady of the land!

And how she wept, and clasp'd his knees;
And how she tended him in vain-
And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain;

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest leaves
A dying man he lay;

His dying words-but when I reach'd
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturb'd her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense

Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;

The music, and the doleful tale,

The rich and balmy eve;

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And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blush'd with love and virgin shame;
And, like the murmur of a dream,
I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept―
Then suddenly, with timorous eye,
She fled to me and wept.

She half-enclosed me with her arms,

She press'd me with a meek embrace; And bending back her head, looked up, And gazed upon my face.

'T was partly love, and partly fear,
And partly 't was a bashful art,
That I might rather feel, than see,
The swelling of her heart.

I calm'd her fears, and she was calm,
And told her love with virgin pride;
And so I won my Genevieve,

My bright and beauteous bride.

THE PALM TREE.

FELICIA HEMANS.

Ir waved not through an eastern sky,
Beside a fount of Araby :

It was not fann'd by southern breeze
In some green island of the seas;
Nor did its graceful shadow sleep
O'er stream of Afric, lone and deep.

But fair the exiled palm tree grew
'Midst foliage of no kindred hue;
Through the laburnum's dropping gold
Rose the light shaft of orient mold,

And Europe's violets faintly sweet,

Purpled the moss-beds at its feet.

Strange look'd it there!—the willow stream'd,

Where silvery waters near it gleam'd;

The lime-bough lured the honey-bee

To murmur by the desert's tree,
And showers of snowy roses made
A luster in its fan-like shade.

There came an eve of festal hours-
Rich music fill'd that garden's bowers:
Lamps, that from flowering branches hung
On sparks of dew soft color flung,

And bright forms glanced-a fairy show-
Under the blossoms, to and fro.

But one, a lone one, 'midst the throng,
Seem'd reckless all of dance or song:
He was a youth of dusky mien,
Whereon the Indian sun had been,
Of crested brow, and long black hair-
A stranger, like the palm tree there.

And slowly, sadly moved his plumes,
Glittering athwart the leafy glooms:
He pass'd the pale green olives by
Nor won the chestnut flowers his eye;
But when to that sole palm he came,
Then shot a rapture through his frame !

To him, to him its rustling spoke,
The silence of his soul it broke!
It whisper'd of his own bright isle,
That lit the ocean with a smile!

Ay, to his ear that native tone

Had something of the sea-wave's moan.

His mother's cabin-home, that lay
Where feathery cocoas fringed the bay;
The dashing of his brethren's oar—
The conch-note heard along the shore ;—
All through his wakening bosom swept:
He clasp'd his country's tree, and wept!

COMMUNION

VITH THE DEAD.

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Oh, scorn him not!—the strength whereby

The patriot girds himself to die,

Th' unconquerable power which fills
The freeman battling on his hills,

These have one fountain deep and clear—

The same whence gushed that child-like tear!

COMMUNION WITH THE DEAD.

TENNYSON.

How pure at heart and sound in head,

With what divine affections bold,

Should be the man whose thoughts would hold An hour's communion with the dead.

In vain shalt thou, or any, call

The spirits from their golden day,
Except, like them, thou too canst say,

My spirit is at peace with all.

They haunt the silence of the breast,
Imaginations calm and fair,

The memory like a cloudless air,
The conscience as a sea at rest.

But when the heart is full of din,

And doubt beside the portal waits, They can but listen at the gates, And hear the household jar within.