ss--pity--and regret.

IV.

'Twas 'mid the theatre's gay throng--
Life's loveliest colours round me spread--
That mid the pauses of a song,
I caught the careless "_She is dead!_"
The gaudy crowd--thy sudden grave--
I shrank in that contrasting shock,
Like midnight Listener by the wave,
When splits some bark upon the rock.

V.

This EARLY DEATH--within its pale
Sad air each angry feeling fades--
An evening haze, whose tender veil
The landscape's harsher features shades.
Ah, Scornful One--thy bier's white hue
Stole every earth-stain from thy cheek,
And left thee all to MEMORY'S view
That HOPE once dared in thee to seek.

1836.

PARTING PRECEPTS.

I.

How graceful was that Grecian creed
Which taught that tongues, of old,
Dwelt in the mountain and the mead,
And where the torrent roll'd,
And that in times of sacred fear,
With sweet mysterious moans,
They spoke aloud, while some pale Seer
Interpreted their tones.[21]

II.

And, LADY, why should we not deem
That in each echoing hill,
And sounding wood, and dancing stream,
A language lingers still?
No lovelier scenes round DELPHI spread
Than round thee stretch divine;
Nor Grecian maid bent brighter head
By haunted stream than thine.

III.

Then fancy thus that to thine ear,
While dies the autumn day,
The VOICES of THE WOODLANDS bear
This tributary lay.
Soft winds that steal from where the moon
Brightens the mountain spring,
Shall blend with Mulla's[22] distant tune,
And these the words they sing:--

1.

"Thou'st shared our thousand harmonies;
_At morn_ thy sleep we stirr'd
With sounds from many a balmy breeze,
And many a jocund bird;
And far from Us, when pleasure's lure
Around thy steps shall be,
Ah, keep thy soul as freshly pure
As We came pure to thee!

2.

"_At noon_, beneath September's heat,
Was it not sweet to feel,
Through shadowy grasses at thy feet,
Our silver waters steal?
Sparklingly clear, as now the truth
Seems in thy glance to glow;
So may, through worldly crowds, thy youth
A stainless current flow.

3.

"_At eve_, our hills for thee detain'd
The sun's departure bright.
He sank--how long our woods were stain'd
For thee with rosy light!
The worth, the warmth, the peace serene,
Thou'st known