soul in the lines which
the next page reveals.

ON THE NIGHT OUR DAUGHTER WAS BORN.

I.

Within our heaven of love, the new-born star
We long devoutly watched, like shepherd kings,
Steals into light, and, floating from afar,
Methinks some bright transcendent seraph sings,
Waving with flashing light her radiant wings,
Immortal welcome to the stranger fair:
To us a child is born. With transport clings
The mother to the babe she sighed to bear;
Of all our treasured loves the long-expected heir!

II.

My daughter! can it be a daughter now
Shall greet my being with her infant smile?
And shall I press that fair and taintless brow
With my fond lips, and tempt, with many a wile
Of playful love, those features to beguile
A parent with their mirth? In the wild sea
Of this dark life, behold a little isle
Rises amid the waters, bright and free,
A haven for my hopes of fond security!

III.

And thou shalt bear a name my line has loved,
And their fair daughters owned for many an age,
Since first our fiery blood a wanderer roved,
And made in sunnier lands his pilgrimage,
Where proud defiance with the waters wage
The sea-born city's walls; the graceful towers
Loved by the bard and honoured by the sage!
My own VENETIA now shall gild our bowers,
And with her spell enchain our life's enchanted hours!

IV.

Oh! if the blessing of a father's heart
Hath aught of sacred in its deep-breath'd prayer,
Skilled to thy gentle being to impart,
As thy bright form itself, a fate as fair;
On thee I breathe that blessing! Let me share,
O God! her joys; and if the dark behest
Of woe resistless, and avoidless care,
Hath, not gone forth, oh! spare this gentle guest.
And wreak thy needful wrath on my resigned breast!

An hour elapsed, and Venetia did not move. Over and over again she
conned the only address from the lips of her father that had ever
reached her ear. A strange inspiration seconded the exertion of an
exercised memory. The duty was fulfilled, the task completed. Then
a sound was heard without. The thought that her mother had returned
occurred to her; she looked up, the big tears streaming down her face;
she listened, like a young hind just roused by the still-distant
huntsman, quivering and wild: she listened, and she sprang up,
replaced the volume, arranged the chair, cast one long, lingering,
feverish glance at the portrait, skimmed thr