Stanzas to a Lady. When sails the moon above the mountains, When musing on the hours I proved When wakes the dawn upon thy dwelling, To me, through every season, dearest, Alone, in grove, by shore, at sea, A Stanzas to a Lady. BY T. K. HERVEY. CROSS the waves, away and far, My spirit turns to thee; I love thee as men love a star, The brightest where a thousand are, 253 With love unstain'd by hopes or fears, My heart is tutor'd not to weep; Where grief lies hush'd, but not asleep, For only thee and heaven; Too far and fair to aid the birth Of thoughts that have a taint of earth. And yet the days for ever gone, When thou wert as a bird, Living 'mid flowers and leaves alone, And singing in so soft a tone As I never since have heard, Will make me grieve that birds, and things So beautiful, have ever wings. And there are hours in the lonely night When I seem to hear thy calls, Faint as the echoes of far delight, And dreamy and sad as the sighing flight Of distant waterfalls ;— And then my vow is heard to keep, For it were a joy, indeed, to weep. For I feel as men feel when moonlight falls Or the wind plays sadly along the walls Of lonely and forsaken halls, That we knew in their day of smiles; Or as one who hears, amid foreign flowers, Stanzas to a Lady. But I may not, and I dare not weep, And the vigils that I love to keep Be broken up by the fever'd sleep Like one who has travell'd far to the spot 255 Yet then, like the incense of many flowers, For I know, from thy dwelling in Eastern That thy spirit has come, in those silent hours, To meet me o'er the sea; And I feel in my soul the fadeless truth Like hidden streams-whose quiet tone Is unheard in the garish day, That utter a music all their own, When the night-dew falls, and the lady moon I knew not half thy gentle worth, We shall not meet on earth again- For they tell me that the cloud of pain And I have heard that storm and shower Have dimm'd thy loveliness, my flower! I would not look upon thy tears; Just as thou wert in those blessed years And I would not aught should mar the spell, I love to think on thee as one And feel that I am journeying on, To join thee on that shore Where thou, I know, wilt look for me, Lines WRITTEN IN A LONELY BURIAL-GROUND ON THE NORTHERN COAST OF THE HIGHLANDS. BY PROFESSOR WILSON. OW mournfully this burial-ground Sleeps 'mid old Ocean's solemn sound, Who rolls his bright and sunny waves All round these deaf and silent graves! The cold wan light that glimmers here, The sickly wild-flowers may not cheer; If here, with solitary hum, The wandering mountain-bee doth come, Lines Written in a Burial-Ground. 'Mid the pale blossoms short his stay, And, like an image, sitting there This may not be the burial-place I see no little kirk-no bell On Sabbath tinkleth through this dell. But Death has chosen this rueful place And nothing tells that e'er again For Hope with Memory seems fled. Wild-screaming bird! unto the sea 257 R |