THE NEW TIMON.

PART THE THIRD.

I.

LORD ARDEN's tale robb'd Morvale's couch of sleep,

The star still trembled on the troubled deep,
O'er the waste ocean gleam'd its chilling glance,

To make more dark the desolate expanse.

This contrast of a fate, but vex'd by gales
Faint with too full a balm from Rhodian Vales; *
This light of life all squander'd upon one

Round whom hearts moved, as planets round a sun,
Mocks the lone doom his barren years endure,

As wasted treasure but insults the poor.

* The perfumes from the island of Rhodes, that still bloom there gave the ancient name, over the surrounding seas.

Back on his soul no faithful echoes cast

Those tones which make the Music of the Past.

No memories hallow, and no dreams restore

Love's lute, far-heard from Youth's Hesperian shore;

The flowers that Arden trampled on the sod,

Still left the odour where the step had trod;

Those flowers, so wasted; had for him but smil'd

One bud,
its breath had perfumed all the wild!
He own'd the moral of the reveller's life,
So christian warriors own the sin of strife,
But oh! how few can lift the soul above
Earth's twin-born rulers,

Fame and Woman's Love!

Just in that time, of all most drear, upon

Fate's barren hill-tops, gleamed the coming sun;
From Nature's face the veil of night withdrawn,
Earth smiled, and Heaven was opened, in the dawn!

How chanced this change? how chances all below?

-

What sways the life the moment doth bestow:

An impulse instinct-look - touch-word-or sighUnlocks the Hades, or reveals the sky.

'T was eve; Calantha had resumed again The wonted life, recaptured to its chain;

In the calm chamber, Morvale sate, and eyed
Lucy's lithe shape, that seem'd on air to glide;
Eyed with complacent, not impassioned, gaze;
So Age looks on, where some fair Childhood plays:
Far, as soars Childhood from dim Age's scope,
Beauty to him who links it not with Hope!

"Sing me, sweet Lucy," said Calantha, "sing 'The Maiden and the King.'

Our favourite song

Thou lov'st not music, Morvale, or, at least,

Nought save some war-song that recalls the East.
Who loves not music, still may pause to hark
Nature's free gladness hymning in the lark.

As sings the bird sings Lucy! all her art
A voice in which you listen to a heart."

"And far as sweep the seas below,
His sails are on the deep;
And far as yonder eagles go,
His flag on every keep;

"LOVE, thou art not a king alone,
Both slave and king thou art!
Who seeks to sway must stoop to own
The kingdom of a heart!"

So sigh'd the Maid, the linden near,
Beneath the lonely sky;

Oh, lonely not! — for angels hear
The humblest human sigh!

III.

His ships are vanish'd from the main, His banners from the keep;

The carnage triumphs on the plain; The tempest on the deep.

"The purple and the crown are mine,”
An Outlaw sigh'd - "no more;
But still as greenly grows the vine
Around the cottage door!

"A shelter from the hunter, Maid,
And water from the spring!"
Before the humble cottage pray'd
The Man that was a King.

Oh, was the threshold that he crost
The gate to fairy ground?

He would not for the kingdom lost,
Have changed the kingdom found!

Divine interpreter thou art, O Song!
To thee all secrets of all hearts belong!
How had the lay, as in a mirror, glass'd,
The sullen present and the joyless past,
Lock'd in the cloister of that lonely soul!

Ere the song ceased, to Lucy's side he stole,

Stole, as in sleep unconsciously we glide,

Hush'd was the voice, and still he dream'd by Lucy's side!

Dream'd, till too sweet the vision: Mournfully

He raised his looks, and met the virgin's eye,
It fix'd his own, nor droop'd;

so gaze met gaze,

And heart saw heart, translucid through the rays.

In that electric link we do but prove

The power by which the wheels of glory move;