So, at that dreamy hour of day
When the last lingering ray
Stops on the highest cloud to play, -
So thought the gentle Rosalie,
As on her maiden reverie

First fell the strain of him who stole

In music to her soul.

THE SPANISH MAID.

FIVE weary months sweet Inez numbered
From that unfading, bitter day

When last she heard the trumpet bray
That called her Isidore away,
That never to her heart has slumbered.

She hears it now, and sees, far bending
Along the mountain's misty side,
His plumed troop, that, waving wide,
Seems like a rippling, feathery tide,
Now bright, now with the dim shore blending.

She hears the cannon's deadly rattle,-
And fancy hurries on to strife,

And hears the drum and screaming fife
Mix with the last sad cry of life.

O, should he, should he fall in battle!

-

Yet still his name would live in story,
And every gallant bard in Spain
Would fight his battles o'er again.
And would she not for such a strain
Resign him to his country's glory?

Thus Inez thought, and plucked the flower That grew upon the very bank

Where first her ear bewildered drank

The plighted vow, where last she sank In that too bitter parting hour.

But now the sun is westward sinking;
And soon, amid the purple haze
That showers from his slanting rays,
A thousand Loves there meet her gaze,
To change her high, heroic thinking.

Then hope, with all its crowding fancies, Before her flits and fills the air;

And, decked in Victory's glorious gear, In vision Isidore is there.

Then how her heart 'mid sadness dances!

Yet little thought she, thus forestalling
The coming joy, that in that hour
The Future, like the colored shower
That seems to arch the ocean o'er,
Was in the living Present falling.

The foe is slain. His sable charger,

All flecked with foam, comes bounding on. The wild Morena rings anon;

And on its brow the gallant Don

And gallant steed grow larger, larger;

And now he nears the mountain-hollow; The flowery bank and little lake

Now on his startled vision break,

And Inez there. He's not awake!

Yet how he'll love this dream to-morrow!

But no, he surely is not dreaming.

Another minute makes it clear.

A scream, a rush, a burning tear From Inez' cheek, dispel the fear That bliss like his is only seeming.

THE TUSCAN GIRL.

How pleasant and how sad the turning tide
Of human life, when side by side
The child and youth begin to glide
Along the vale of years,

The pure twin-being for a little space,
With lightsome heart, and yet a graver face,
Too young for woe, though not for tears.

This turning tide is Ursulina's now,
The time is marked upon her brow,
Now every thought and feeling throw
Their shadows on her face;

For so are every thought and feeling joined,
'T were hard to answer whether heart or mind
Of either were the native place.

The things that once she loved are still the same,
Yet now there needs another name
To give the feeling which they claim,
While she the feeling gives;

She cannot call it gladness or delight;
And yet there seems a richer, lovelier light
On e'en the humblest thing that lives.