WE met but in one giddy dance;
Goodnight join'd hands with greeting;
And twenty thousand things may chance,
Before our second meeting:
For oh, I have been often told
That all the world grows older,
And hearts and hopes, to-day so cold,
To-morrow must be colder!
If I have never touch'd the string,
Beneath your window, dear one,
And never said a civil thing,
When you were by to hear one,-
If I have made no rhymes about
Those looks which conquer stoics,
And heard those angel tones, without
One fit of fair heroics,-
Yet do not, though the world's cold school
Some bitter truths has taught me,
Oh, do not think me quite the fool
Which kinder friends have thought me ;
There is one charm I still could feel,
If no one laugh'd at feeling,-
One dream my lute could still reveal,
If it were worth revealing!
But Folly little recks what name
Of friend or foe she handles,
When Merriment directs the game,
Aud Midnight dims the candles;
I know that Folly's breath is weak,
And scarcely stirs a feather,
But yet I will not have her speak
Your name and mine together!
Farewell!-Oh, life is dark and light,
Half rapture and half sorrow;
My heart is very full to-night,
My cup shall be, to-morrow;
But they shall never know from me
On any one condition,
Whose health makes bright my burgundy,
Whose beauty was my vision.
OH! gentle shade,—reproach me not,
For hours of mirth too late gone by!
Thy loveliness is ne'er forgot
However wild the revelry.
For o'er the silent goblet, thou
Art still remember'd,-and a cloud Comes o'er my heart, and o'er my brow; And I am lone, while all are loud.
Reproach me not,-Reproach me not
For mingling in the noisy scene!
Mine is indeed a gloomy lot,
To think on joys which but have been ;
To meditate on woes, which yet
Must haunt my life, and speed my fall!
Some minds would struggle to forget,
But mine would fain remember all!
I think on thee,-I think and sigh,-
Though thoughts are sad, and sighs are vain!
There's something in thy memory,
That gives a loveliness to pain;
But yet, ah! gentle saint, forgive
The faults this wretched breast hath known! Had fate allow'd thee but to live,
Those shadowing faults had ne'er been shown.
Thy friends are fading from my sight,
But from my mind they ne'er depart;
They leave behind them in their flight,
Their images upon my heart;-
And better 'twere that all should go
From this dark world,-since thou art gone!
I need no friend to share my woe!-
I love to weep apart,—alone.
Thy picture! It is life, health,-love,-
To gaze upon that eye,-that cheek,-
Those lips which even in fancy move-
Which fancy teaches even to speak.
Oh! I have hung so long at night,
O'er thy still 'semblance, charm'd from pain,
That I have thought the living light
Came beaming from those eyes again!
In my dark heart thy image glows,
In shape and light divinely fair;-
Youth sketch'd the form, when free from woes,
And faithful memory placed it there.
In revelry 'tis still with me ;-
In loneliness 'tis ne'er forgot,
My heart beats still the same to thee:-
Reproach me not!-Reproach me not!
THE moon shines bright,
And the bark bounds light,
As the stag bounds over the lea;
We love the strife
Of the sailor's life,
And we love our dark blue sea.
Now high, now low,
To the depths we go,
Now rise on the surge again;
We make a track
O'er the ocean's back,
And play with his hoary mane.
Fearless we face
The storm in its chase,
When the dark clouds fly before it ;
And meet the shock
Of the fierce siroc,
Though death breathes hotly o'er it.
The landsman may quail
At the shout of the gale,
Peril's the sailor's joy;
Wild as the waves
Which his vessel braves,
Is the lot of the sailor boy.
THE bride is dead! The bride is dead!
Cold and frail, and fair she lieth:
Wrapp'd is she in sullen lead;
And a flower is at her head;
And the breeze above her sigheth,
Thorough night and thorough day,
"Fled away y!-Fled away!
y!"
Once, but what can that avail,—
Once, she wore within her bosom
Pity, which did never fail,
A hue that dash'd the lily pale;
And upon her cheek a blossom
Such as yet was never known;
-All is past and overthrown!
Mourn the sweetest bride is dead,
And her knight is sick with sorrow, That her bloom is 'lapp'd in lead :' Yet he hopeth, fancy-fed,
He may kiss his love to-morrow. But the breezes-what say they? "Fled away! Fled away!"
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