And ever as the sad lament

Would thus her lips divide, Her lips, like sister roses bent By passing gales, elastic sent

Their blushes from the tide.

While mournful o'er her pictured face
Did then her glances steal,

She seemed, she thought, a marble Grace,
To enslave with love the human race,
But ne'er that love to feel.

"Ah, what avail those eyes replete
With charms without a name!
Alas! no kindred rays they meet,
To kindle by collision sweet
Of mutual love the flame!

"O, 't is the worst of cruel things,
This solitary state!

Yon bird that trims his purple wings,
As on the bending bough he swings,
Prepares to join his mate.

"The little glowworm sheds her light, —

Nor sheds her light in vain,

That still her tiny lover's sight
Amid the darkness of the night

May trace her o'er the plain.

-

"All living nature seems to move By sympathy divine,

The sea, the earth, the air above;
As if one universal love

Did all their hearts entwine!

My heart alone of all my kind
No love can ever warm:
That only can resemblance find
With waste Arabia, where the wind
Ne'er breathes on human form;

"A blank, embodied space, that knows
No changes in its reign,

Save when the fierce tornado throws
Its barren sands, like drifted snows,
In ridges o'er the plain."

Thus plained the maid; and now her eyes
Slow lifting from the tide,
Their liquid orbs with sweet surprise

A youth beheld in ecstasies,

Mute standing by her side.

"Forbear, O lovely maid, forbear!"
The youth enamoured cried,
"Nor with Arabia's waste compare
The heart of one so young and fair,
To every charm allied.

"Or, if Arabia, — rather say,

Where some delicious spring

Remurmurs to the leaves that play
'Mid palm and date and floweret gay
On zephyr's frolic wing.

"And now, methinks, I cannot deem
The picture else but true;
For I a wandering traveller seem
O'er life's drear waste, without a gleam
Of hope, if not in you."

Thus spake the youth; and then his tongue
Such converse sweet distilled,
It seemed, as on his words she hung,
As though a heavenly spirit sung,
And all her soul he filled.

He told her of his cruel fate,

Condemned alone to rove

From infancy to man's estate,
Though courted by the fair and great,
Yet never once to love.

And then from many a poet's page

The blest reverse he proved, How sweet to pass life's pilgrimage, From purple youth to sere old age, Aye loving and beloved!

Here ceased the youth; but still his words Did o'er her fancy play;

They seemed the matin-song of birds,

Or like the distant low of herds
That welcomes in the day.

The sympathetic chord she feels
Soft thrilling in her soul;
And, as the sweet vibration steals
Through every vein, in tender peals
She seems to hear it roll.

Her altered heart, of late so drear,
Then seemed a faery land,
Where Nymphs and rosy Loves appear
On margin green of fountain clear,
And frolic hand in hand.

But who shall paint her crimson blush,
Nor think his hand of stone,

As now the secret with a flush
Did o'er her aching senses rush,
Her heart was not her own!

The happy Lindor, with a look
That every hope confessed,

Her glowing hand exulting took,
And pressed it, as she fearful shook,
In silence to his breast.

Myrtilla felt the spreading flame,
Yet knew not how to chide;

So sweet it mantled o'er her frame,
That, with a smile of pride and shame,
She owned herself his bride.

No longer, then, ye fair, complain,
And call the Fates unkind;

The high, the low, the meek, the vain,
Shall each a sympathetic swain,

Another self, shall find.