t have never pressed,
Nor hands in holy pledge have given,
By father's love were ne'er caressed,
Nor in a mother's eye saw heaven.

A flowerless and fruitless tree,
A dried up stream, a mateless bird,
They live, yet never living be,
They die, their music all unheard.

I wish I were where Helen lies,
For there I could not be alone;
But now, when this dull body dies,
The spirit still will make its moan.

Love passed me by, nor touched my brow;
Life would not yield one perfect boon;
And all too late it calls me now,
O all too late, and all too soon.

If thou couldst the dark riddle read
Which leaves this dart within my breast,
Then might I think thou lov'st indeed,
Then were the whole to thee confest.

Father, they will not take me home,
To the poor child no heart is free;
In sleet and snow all night I roam;
Father,--was this decreed by thee?

I will not try another door,
To seek what I have never found;
Now, till the very last is o'er,
Upon the earth I'll wander round.

I will not hear the treacherous call
That bids me stay and rest awhile,
For I have found that, one and all,
They seek me for a prey and spoil.

They are not bad, I know it well;
I know they know not what they do;
They are the tools of the dread spell
Which the lost lover must pursue.

In temples sometimes she may rest,
In lonely groves, away from men,
There bend the head, by heats distrest,
Nor be by blows awoke again.

Nature is kind, and God is kind,
And, if she had not had a heart,
Only that great discerning mind,
She might have acted well her part.

But oh this thirst, that none can still,
Save those unfounden waters free;
The angel of my life should fill
And soothe me to Eternity!

It marks the defect in the position of woman that one like Mariana
should have found reason to write thus. To a man of equal power, equal
sincerity, no more!--many resources would have presented themselves. He
would not have needed to seek, he would have been called by life, and
not permitted to be quite wrecked through the affections only. But such
women as Mariana are often lost, unless they meet some man of
sufficiently