248

TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART.

What cure your head and side?—

'T would kill me what would cure my pain;
And as I must on earth abide
Awhile, yet tempt me not to break
My chain.

TO THE QUEEN OF MY HEART.

HALL we roam, my love,

To the twilight grove,

When the moon is rising bright;

Oh, I'll whisper there,

In the cool night-air,

What I dare not in broad daylight!

I'll tell thee a part

Of the thoughts that start

To being when thou art nigh;

And thy beauty, more bright

Than the stars' soft light,

Shall seem as a weft from the sky.

When the pale moonbeam

On tower and stream

Sheds a flood of silver sheen,

How I love to gaze

As the cold ray strays

O'er thy face, my heart's throned queen!

Wilt thou roam with me

To the restless sea,

And linger upon the steep,

And list to the flow

Of the waves below

How they toss and roar and leap?

Those boiling warcs

And the storm that raves

At night o'er their foaming crest, Resemble the strife

That, from earliest life,

The passions have waged in my breast.

Oh, come then and rove

To the sea or the grove

When the moon is rising bright,

And I'll whisper there

In the cool night-air

What I dare not in broad daylight.

SIMILES.

S from an ancestral oak

Two empty ravens sound their clarion, Yell by yell, and croak by croak, When they scent the noonday smoke Of fresh human carrion :

As two gibbering night-birds flit

From their bowers of deadly hue, Through the night to frighten it, When the moon is in a fit,

And the stars are none, or few :

As a shark and dog-fish wait
Under an Atlantic isle,

For the negro-ship whose freight
Is the theme of their debate,

Wrinkling their red gills the while

Are ye, two vultures sick for battle,

Two scorpions under one wet stone,

Two bloodless wolves whose dry throats rattle, Two crows perch'd on the murrain'd cattle, Two vipers tangled into one.

THE WANDERING JEW:

A POEM.*

"If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? Follow thou me."-St. John, xxi, 22.

CANTO I.

"ME miserable, which way shall I fly?
Infinite wrath and infinite despair-
Which way I fly is hell-myself am hell;
And in this lowest deep a lower deep,

To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven."

HE brilliant orb of parting day
Diffused a rich and mellow ray,
Above the mountain's brow,
It tinged the hills with lustrous light,
It tinged the promontory's height,
Still sparkling with the snow;
And as aslant it threw its beam,
Tipt with gold the mountain stream
That laved the vale below;

Long hung the eye of glory there,
And linger'd as if loth to leave
A scene so lovely and so fair,
'Twere luxury even, there to grieve.
All, all was tranquil, all was still,
Save when the music of the rill,

Paradise Lost.

Originally printed in "Fraser's Magazine," July, 1831.

Or distant waterfall,

At intervals broke on the ear,

Which Echo's self was charm'd to hear,

And ceased her babbling call.

Light clouds in fleeting livery gay,
Hung, painted in grotesque array,

Upon the western sky:

Forgetful of the approaching dawn,
The peasants danced upon the lawn,
For the vintage time was nigh:
How jocund to the tabor's sound,

O'er the smooth, trembling turf they bound,

In every measure light and free,
The very soul of harmony;
Light as the dewdrops of the morn,
That hang upon the blossom'd thorn.

But see, what forms are those,
Scarce seen by glimpse of dim twilight,
Wandering o'er the mountain's height?
They swiftly haste to the vale below :
One wraps his mantle around his brow,
As if to hide his woes;

And as his steed impetuous flies,

What strange fire flashes from his eyes!

The far-off city's murmuring sound

Was borne on the breeze which floated around;

Noble Padua's lofty spire

Scarce glow'd with the sunbeam's latest fire,

Yet dash'd the travellers on

Ere night o'er the earth was spread,

Full many a mile they must have sped,
Ere their destined course was run.

Welcome was the moonbeam's ray,
Which slept upon the towers so grey.