WRITTEN IN A HIGHLAND GLEN.
To whom belongs this valley fair,
That sleeps beneath the filmy air,
Even like a living thing!
Calm, as the infant at the breast,-
Save a still sound that speaks of rest,-
That streamlet's murmuring!
The heavens appear to love this vale;
There, clouds with scarce-seen motion sail
Or, 'mid the silence lie!
By that blue arch this beauteous earth
Mid evening's hour of dewy mirth
Seems bound unto the sky.
O! that this lovely vale were mine!
Then, from glad youth to calm decline,
My years would gently glide;
Hope would rejoice in endless dreams,
And memory's oft-returning gleams
By peace be sanctified.
There would unto my soul be given,
From presence of that gracious heaven,
And thoughts would come of mystic mood, To make in this deep solitude
And did I ask to whom belonged
This vale? I feel that I have wronged
Nature's most gracious soul!
She spreads her glories o'er the earth,
And all her children from their birth
Are joint-heirs of the whole?
Yea! long as nature's humblest child
Hath kept her temple undefiled
By sinful sacrifice,
Earth's fairest scenes are all his own,
He is a monarch, and his throne
Is built amid the skies!
A BLUE Italian sky,-yet scarce more blue
Than the clear lake beneath, upon whose breast
Are gliding two or three light boats, with sails
Floating and waving gracefully like clouds.
On one side there are corn and green grass fields,
And olive groves and vineyards, and one shrine,-
One ruined shrine, sacred in other days
To some most radiant nymph or starry queen,
Whose sweet divinity was beauty. Near
Is a lone cavern, with its azure fount
Shaded by roses and a laurel tree,
Beneath whose shade might the young painter lean,
And gaze around until his passionate hues
Caught light and life and loveliness. Steep hills
Are on the other side, upon whose heights
Dark Hannibal once rested. Who could dream
That this calm lake was crimson once with blood?
That these green myrtles waved, o'er the death-wounds
Of men in their last agony? Oh, War!
How soon thy red fiends can lay desolate
The holy and the beautiful!
L. E. L.
THE FLOWER OF MALHAMDALE.
IF, on some bright and breezless eve,
When falls the ripe rose leaf by leaf,
The moralizing Bard will heave
A sigh that seems allied to grief,
Shall I be blithe shall I be mute
Nor shed the tear, nor pour the wail,
When death has blighted to its root
The sweetest flower of Malhamdale!
Her form was like the fair sun-stream
That glances through the mists of noon,-
Ah! little thought we that its beam
Would vanish from our glens so soon!
Yet, when her eye had most of mirth,
And when her cheek the least was pale,
They talked of purer worlds than earth :-
She could not stay in Malhamdale!
The placid depth of that dark eye,
The wild-rose tint of that fair cheek,
Will still awake the long-drawn sigh,
While memory of the past shall speak.
And we can never be but pained
To think, when gazing on that vale,
One angel more to heaven is gained,
But one is lost to Malhamdale!
I may not tell what dreams were mine,
Dreams laid in bright futurity,
When the full, soft, and partial shine
Of that fair eye was turned on me.
Enough enough, the blooming wreath
Of Love, and Hope, and Joy, is pale,
And now its withering perfumes breathe
On yon new grave in Malhamdale.
BY MRS. CORNWELL BARON WILSON.
YES! once I own I loved thee,
With purest flame, with purest flame;
The smiles of beauty moved me,
Let stoics blame, let stoics blame;
Aye! let them scorn love's tender theme,
And with cold hearts such lays deride;
One hour of youth's romantic dream,
Is worth an age of life beside !
When Hope's soft voice was singing,
Her sweetest lay, her sweetest lay;
And smiles, like flowers, were springing
Around my way, around my way;-
Then first in joyous hour we met,
With bosoms light, from sorrow free,
Nor did I dream that dark regret
Could ever rise at thoughts of THEE!
"Twas in youth's summer season,
When hearts were gay, when hearts were gay; Before the wand of reason
Chased hope away, chased hope away;
That first this bosom felt love's power,
And worshipped at his fairy shrine;
Nor ever thought that luckless hour
Would be the source of griefs like mine!
That sunny time passed over,
And life grew dark, and life grew dark;
And fate soon left thy lover,
A stranded bark, a stranded bark;
Of all his early glories reft,
On life's rude ocean dark and dim, With not one friendly harbour left, Or welcome port to shelter him!
Still in that hour of sorrow,
When fortune frowned, when fortune frowned;
His heart one hope could borrow,
To look around, to look around; It was the blissful thought of thee,
In life's first bright unclouded day, That lightened all the misery
That tracked the wanderer's weary way!
Yet this last hope was blighted,
So fate decreed, so fate decreed;
For Thou, like others, slighted
The bruised reed, the bruised reed;
Yes! thou wert like that faithless thing,
The blue-winged bird of distant isles,
That only spreads its painted wing,
And breathes its song when Phœbus smiles!
Yes! once I own I loved thee,
Alas! too well, alas! too well;
How faithless I have proved thee,
I will not tell, I will not tell!
Let stoics scorn love's tender theme,
And turn away their eyes of pride;
Give me one hour of passion's dream,
"Tis worth an age of life beside !
BETWEEN two worlds life hovers like a star,
"Twixt night and morn upon the horizon's verge, How little do we know that which we are!
How less what we may be! The eternal surge Of time and tide rolls on, and bears afar
Our bubbles; as the old burst, new emerge, Lashed from the foam of ages; while the graves Of empires heave but like some mightier waves!
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