VII.

VIII.

She with her mother crossed the sea ; With answering vows. Plebeian was the stock, The babe and mother near me dwell:

Plebeian, though ingenuous, the stock, Yet does my yearning heart to thee

From which her graces and her honours sprung: Turn rather, though I love her well :

And hence the father of the enamoured Youth, Rest, little Stranger, rest thee here !

With haughty indignation, spurned the thought Never was any child more dear!

Of such alliance.

From their cradles up, With but a step between their several homes,

Twins had they been in pleasure ; after strife -I cannot help it; ill intent

And petty quarrels, had grown fond again ; I've none, my pretty Innocent!

Each other's advocate, each other's stay ; I weep—I know they do thee wrong,

And, in their happiest moments, not content, These tears—and my poor idle tongue.

If more divided than a sportive pair Oh, what a kiss was that! my cheek

Of sea-fowl, conscious both that they are hovering How cold it is ! but thou art good;

Within the eddy of a common blast, Thine eyes are on me—they would speak, Or hidden only by the concave depth I think, to help me if they could.

Of neighbouring billows from each other's sight. Blessings upon that soft, warm face, My heart again is in its place !

Thus, not without concurrence of an age

Unknown to memory, was an earnest given While thou art mine, my little Love,

By ready nature for a life of love, This cannot be a sorrowful grove;

For endless constancy, and placid truth ;

But whatsoe'er of such rare treasure lay
Contentment, hope, and mother's glee,
I seem to find them all in thee:

Reserved, had fate permitted, for support

Of their maturer years, his present mind
Here's grass to play with, here are flowers ;

Was under fascination ;-he beheld
I'll call thee by my darling's name;
Thou hast, I think, a look of ours,

A vision, and adored the thing he saw.

Arabian fiction never filled the world
Thy features seem to me the same;
Ilis little sister thou shalt be ;

With half the wonders that were wrought for him.

Earth breathed in one great presence of the spring ; And, when once more my home I see,

Life turned the meanest of her implements,
I'll tell him many tales of Thee.”

Before his eyes, to price above all gold ;
The house she dwelt in was a sainted shrine ;
Her chamber-window did surpass in glory
The portals of the dawn; all paradise

Could, by the simple opening of a door,
VAUDRACOUR AND JULIA.

Let itself in upon him :pathways, walks,
The following tale was written as an Episode, in a work Swarmed with enchantment, till his spirit sank,

from which its length may perhaps exclude it. The Surcharged, within him, overblest to move facts are true; no invention as to these has been

Beneath a sun that wakes a weary world exercised, as none was needed

To its dull round of ordinary cares ;
O HAPPY time of youthful lovers (thus

A man too happy for mortality!
My story may begin) O balmy time,
In which a love-knot on a lady's brow

So passed the time, till whether through effect Is fairer than the fairest star in heaven !

Of some unguarded moment that dissolved
To such inheritance of blessed fancy

Virtuous restraint-ah, speak it, think it, not !
(Fancy that sports more desperately with minds Deem rather that the fervent Youth, who saw
Than ever fortune hath been known to do) So many bars between his present state
The high-born Vaudracour was brought, by years And the dear haven where he wished to be
Whose progress had a little overstepped

In honourable wedlock with his Love,
His stripling prime. A town of small repute, Was in his judgment tempted to decline
Among the vine-clad mountains of Auvergne, To perilous weakness, and entrust his cause
Was the Youth's birth-place. There he wooed a To nature for a happy end of all ;
Maid

Deem that by such fond hope the Youth was swayed, Who heard the heart-felt music of his suit

And bear with their transgression, when I add

1802.

XXX.

That Julia, wanting yet the name of wife, Persisted openly that death alone
Carried about her for a secret grief

Should abrogate his human privilege
The promise of a mother.

Divine, of swearing everlasting truth,
To conceal

Upon the altar, to the Maid he loved.
The threatened shame, the parents of the Maid
Found means to hurry her away by night,

“You shall be baffled in your mad intent And unforewarned, that in some distant spot If there be justice in the court of France," She might remain shrouded in privacy,

Muttered the Father.- From these words the Youth Until the babe was born. When morning came, Conceived a terror; and, by night or day, The Lover, thus bereft, stung with his loss, Stirred nowhere without weapons, that full soon And all uncertain whither he should turn, Found dreadful provocation : for at night Chafed like a wild beast in the toils; but soon When to his chamber he retired, attempt Discovering traces of the fugitives,

Was made to seize him by three armed men, Their steps he followed to the Maid's retreat. Acting, in furtherance of the father's will, Easily may the sequel be divined

Under a private signet of the State.
Walks to and fro-watchings at every hour; One the rash Youth's ungovernable hand
And the fair Captive, who, whene’er she may, Slew, and as quickly to a second gave
Is busy at her casement as the swallow

A perilous wound-he shuddered to behold Fluttering its pinions, almost within reach, The breathless corse ; then peacefully resigned About the pendent nest, did thus espy

His person to the law, was lodged in prison, Her Lover !—thence a stolen interview,

And wore the fetters of a criminal.
Accomplished under friendly shade of night.

Have you observed a tuft of winged seed
I pass the raptures of the pair ;—such theme That, from the dandelion's naked stalk,
Is, by innumerable poets, touched

Mounted aloft, is suffered not to use
In more delightful verse than skill of mine Its natural gifts for purposes of rest,
Could fashion ; chiefly by that darling bard Driven by the autumnal whirlwind to and fro
Who told of Juliet and her Romeo,

Through the wide element? or have you marked And of the lark's note heard before its time, The heavier substance of a leaf-clad bough, And of the streaks that laced the severing clouds Within the vortex of a foaming flood, In the unrelenting east.— Through all her courts Tormented ? by such aid you may conceive The vacant city slept; the busy winds,

The perturbation that ensued ;-ah, no! That keep no certain intervals of rest,

Desperate the Maid—the Youth is stained with Moved not; meanwhile the galaxy displayed

blood; Her fires, that like mysterious pulses beat Unmatchable on earth is their disquiet! Aloft ;-momentous but uneasy bliss !

Yet as the troubled seed and tortured bough To their full hearts the universe seemed hung Is Man, subjected to despotic sway. On that brief meeting's slender filament !

For him, by private influence with the Court, They parted; and the generous Vaudracour Was pardon gained, and liberty procured; Reached speedily the native threshold, bent But not without exaction of a pledge, On making (so the Lovers had agreed)

Which liberty and love dispersed in air. A sacrifice of birthright to attain

He flew to her from whom they would divide him-A final portion from his father's hand;

He clove to her who could not give him peaceWhich granted, Bride and Bridegroom then would Yea, his first word of greeting was,—“All right flee

Is gone from me; my lately-towering hopes, To some remote and solitary place,

To the least fibre of their lowest root, Shady as night, and beautiful as heaven,

Are withered; thou no longer canst be mine, Where they may live, with no one to behold I thine-the conscience-stricken inust not woo Their happiness, or to disturb their love.

The unruffled Innocent,-I see thy face,
But now of this no whisper; not the less,

Behold thee, and my misery is complete!”
If ever an obtrusive word were dropped
Touching the matter of his passion, still,

“One,are we not?” exclaimed the Maiden—“One, In his stern father's hearing, Vaudracour

For innocence and youth, for weal and woe?”