THE

NIGHT BEFORE THE BRIDAL.

CANTO FIRST.

But now I am returned, and that war-thoughts
Have left their places vacant, in their rooms
Come thronging soft and delicate desires
All prompting me how fair young Hero is.

Much Ado about Nothing.

I.

HERALD of Evening! Star Hesperian hail !
Thy azure ray gleams tremulously pale,

The reign of night comes sweetly on, but still
The sun, half hid behind the vine-clad hill,
Glows fiercely through the twilight's dusky veil:
It is the hour of prayer in proud Seville! (1)
Vassal and lord, high priest and warrior,
Peasant toil-worn and listless loiterer,

By one vast impulse sway'd, all silent kneel,

B

Each as that hour hath found him, when and where

He saw that sign, and heard the call to prayer.

The pause

is like the dull repose of death,

You might almost discern the in-drawn breath;

But this is transient as the sunset glare,

The lessening disk descends, departs, - 'tis gone!

Again the living tide rolls broadly on.

II.

Hesperian Star! The eye still rests on thee,

Most beauteous in the dim obscurity;

Like woman's smile serenely clear and bright,

When man's wild hopes are quench'd in sorrow's night!

The banners droop along the rampart walls,

Pale twilight steals on bower and balcony;

The fount within St. Francis' sacred halls,

In its deep basin plays melodiously.

Oh! for a breeze to raise the perfumed sighs

From fair Sevilla's golden orang'ries!

Oh! for a breath to waft the notes that tremble

From some Enamorato's thrilling lute!

He sings of beaming eyes,

eyes

which resemble

The summer stars, when from their heights they shoot

Down the horizon's verge, and make earth mute With watching and divining their sweet mysteries.

III.

Where in Sevillian towers beam eyes like thine,
Young votary of Paolo's sainted shrine
Helena-art thou bending o'er thy beads
In shaded cell, where thy young beauty pleads
With Heaven, not vainly, for this world of sin?
One vesper hymn of thine, might entrance win
For spirits, by their wild transgressions driven
From thence, at the eternal gate of heaven!
Where art thou Helena? I search'd the cell,
The choir, the chapelry's dim solitude,
Where thou wert wont, in pensive pious mood,
To meet the summons of the evening bell.

IV.

There is a garden grove in fair Seville,

Close where the river rolls its ample flood;

And you may watch the boats glide by on keel

Beset with spray-the fishes' finny brood,

イ

Or the young cygnet with her parent swan

Arching their white necks in the noon-day sun:

Or in the ev❜ning from that fairy strand,

See the broad moonbeam on the wave expand. the leisure hours of one

There wore away

Whose sands of life had past their zenith run.
He was no stoic stern, the world had been
To him a wild, but not unjoyous scene;
Love, glory, wealth, the camp, the festive hall,
To him were open, and he proved them all :
All in their season sated, save the camp,

Still Miguel loved the deep-mouth'd cannon's roar ;
His heart yet bounded to the martial tramp

Of steed bedight in panoply of war.

And those were days of bloodshed-Europe's gaze (2)
Was fix'd on Gallia's and on Spain's affrays;
And jealous England, and Rome's mitred crown,
Strove, though with adverse sway, to bind them down.
Heedless if on Milan's or Gallia's plain,

Don Miguel, brave as in his young renown,
Took helm and lance, and girt his sword again.

V.

He left a lonely hearth, and mansion lone,
For she, the partner of his youth, was gone