"Bertha! where art thou ?--Speak, oh! speak, my

own!"

Alas! unconscious of her pangs the while,

The gentle girl, in fear's cold grasp alone,

Powerless hath sunk within the blazing pile;

A young bright form, deck'd gloriously for death,

With flowers all shrinking from the flame's fierce breath!

But oh! thy strength, deep love!-there is no power
To stay the mother from that rolling grave,
Tho' fast on high the fiery volumes tower,

And forth, like banners, from each lattice wave;
Back, back she rushes thro' a host combined-
Mighty is anguish, with affection twined!

And what bold step may follow, midst the roar
Of the red billows, o'er their prey that rise?
None!--Courage there stood still-and never more
Did those fair forms emerge on human eyes!

Was one brief meeting theirs, one wild farewell?
And died they heart to heart?-Oh! who can tell?

Freshly and cloudlessly the morning broke

On that sad palace, midst its pleasure-shades; Its painted roofs had sunk-yet black with smoke

And lonely stood its marble colonnades :

But yester-eve their shafts with wreaths were bound!-Now lay the scene one shrivell'd scroll around!

And bore the ruins no recording trace

Of all that woman's heart had dared and done?
Yes! there were gems to mark its mortal place,
That forth from dust and ashes dimly shone !
Those had the mother on her gentle breast,
Worn round her child's fair image, there at rest.

And they were all !--the tender and the true

Left this alone her sacrifice to prove, Hallowing the spot where mirth once lightly flew,

To deep, lone, chasten'd thoughts of grief and love. Oh! we have need of patient faith below, To clear away the mysteries of such wo!

JUANA.

Juana, mother of the Emperor Charles V., upon the death of her husband, Philip the Handsome of Austria, who had treated her with uniform neglect, had his body laid upon a bed of state in a magnificent dress, and being possessed with the idea that it would revive, watched it for a length of time incessantly, waiting for the moment of returning life.

JUANA.

It is but dust thou look'st upon. This love,
This wild and passionate idolatry,
What doth it in the shadow of the grave?
Gather it back within thy lonely heart,
So must it ever end: too much we give
Unto the things that perish.

THE night-wind shook the tapestry round an ancient

palace-room,

And torches, as it rose and fell, waved thro' the gorgeous gloom,

And o'er a shadowy regal couch threw fitful gleams and red,

Where a woman with long raven hair sat watching by

*

the dead.