he truth betray.

"And if I may not choose but weep,
Is not my grief mine own?
No heart was heavier yet for tears--
O leave me, friend, alone!"

Come, join this once the merry band,
They call aloud for thee,
And mourn no more for what is lost,
But let the past go free.

"O, little know ye in your mirth
What wrings my heart so deep!
I have not lost the idol yet
For which I sigh and weep."

Then rouse thee and take heart! thy blood
Is young and full of fire;
Youth should have hope and might to win,
And wear its best desire.

"O, never may I hope to gain
What dwells from me so far;
It stands as high, it looks as bright,
As yonder burning star."

Why, who would seek to woo the stars
Down from their glorious sphere?
Enough it is to worship them,
When nights are calm and clear.

"Oh, I look up and worship too--
My star it shines by day--
Then let me weep the livelong light
The whilst it is away."

* * * * *

A thread from the distaff of Omphale may be stronger than the club of
Hercules. Here is an inconstant Romeo escaped from his Juliet, and yet
unable to shake off the magnetic spell which must haunt him to his dying
day.

TO A GOLDEN HEART.

Pledge of departed bliss,
Once gentlest, holiest token!
Art thou more faithful than thy mistress is,
That ever I must wear thee,
And on my bosom bear thee,
Although the bond that knit her soul with mine is broken?
Why shouldest thou prove stronger?
Short are the days of love, and wouldst thou make them longer?

Lili! in vain I shun thee!
Thy spell is still upon me.
In vain I wander through the distant forests strange,
In vain I roam at will
By foreign glade and hill,
For, ah! where'er I range,
Beside my heart, the heart of Lili nestles still!

Like a bird that breaks its twine,
Is this poor heart of mine:
It fain into the summer bowers would fly,
And yet it cannot be
Again so wholly free;
For always it must bear
The token which is there,
To mark it as a thrall of past captivity.

* * * * *

Here, again, is Romeo before his escape. Poor Juliet! may we hope that
she still has, and may long possess, the power

"To lure this tassel-gentle back again."

Death, indeed, were a gentler fate than desertion. Truth to say, Goethe
would have made but a sorry Romeo