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extinction of the intrusive line. This is finally voured to prevent, ends her tragedy by going effected in the play through a series of horrible quietly home into her hitherto untenanted monucalamities. The son of the count having been ment." stolen in his infancy by a robber, is brought up in his supposed father's profession; falls in love, as unwittingly as Edipus, with his sister; kills his father in a scuffle with the Bow-street officers of Poland; and finally dies in the embrace of his ghostly Ahnfrau, whom he mistakes for Bertha. The old lady, when her penance is completed, by the disasters of her descendants, which, with truly disinterested maternal love, she had vainly endea- I which brings down the punishment.

I have taken very considerable liberties with the original plot; first, in making the guilt of the Ancestress supernatural, as believing such most likely to incur supernatural punishment; secondly, in making Jaromir cousin instead of brother, and thus avoiding the most revolting of crimes; and, thirdly, in awarding something of the character of poetical justice, as it is the count's own offence

POETICAL PORTRAITS.

No. I.

O NO, sweet lady, not to thee

That set and chilling tone,

By which the feelings on themselves

So utterly are thrown:

For mine has sprung upon my lips,

Impatient to express

The haunting charm of thy sweet voice

And gentlest loveliness.

A very fairy queen thou art,

Whose only spells are on the heart.

The garden it has many a flower,

But only one for thee

The early graced of Grecian song,
The fragrant myrtle tree;
For it doth speak of happy love,
The delicate, the true.

If its pearl buds are fair like thee,
They seem as fragile too;
Likeness, not omens, for love's power
Will watch his own most precious flower.

Thou art not of that wilder race
Upon the mountain side,
Able like the summer sun
And winter blasts to bide:
But thou art of that gentler growth,
Which asks some loving eye,
To keep it in sweet guardianship,
Or it must droop and die;
Requiring equal love and care,
Even more delicate than fair.

I cannot paint to thee the charm
Which thou hast wrought on me;
Thy laugh, so like the wild bird's song
In the first bloom-touch'd tree.

You spoke of lovely Italy,

And of its thousand flowers;

Your lips had caught the music breath

Amid its summer bow'rs.

And can it be a form like thine

Has braved the stormy Appenine ?

I'm standing now with one white rose
Where silver waters glide:

I've flung that white rose on the stream,

How light it breasts the tide !

The clear waves seem as if they love

So beautiful a thing;

And fondly to the scented leaves

The laughing sunbeams cling.
A summer voyage-fairy freight ;-
And such, sweet lady, be thy fate!

No. II.

Ан! little do those features wear
The shade of grief, the soil of care;
The hair is parted o'er a brow
Open and white as mountain snow,
And thence descends in many a ring,
With sun and summer glistening.
Yet something on that brow has wrought
A moment's cast of passing thought;
Musing of gentle dreams, like those
Which tint the slumbers of the rose:
Not love, love is not yet with thee,-
But just a glimpse what love may be :
A memory of some last night's sigh,
When flitting blush and drooping eye
Answer'd some youthful cavalier,
Whose words sank pleasant on thine ear,
To stir, but not to fill the heart ;-
Dreaming of such, fair girl, thou art.-
Thou blessed season of our spring,
When hopes are angels on the wing;

Bound upwards to their heavenly shore, Alas! to visit earth no more.

Then step and laugh alike are light,
When, like a summer morning bright,
Our spirits in their mirth are such,
As turn to gold whate'er they touch.
The past! 'tis nothing, childhood's day
Has roll'd too recently away,

For youth to shed those mournful tears
That fill the eye in older years,
When care looks back on that bright leaf
Of ready smiles and shortlived grief.
The future!-'tis the promised land;
To which hope points with prophet hand,
Telling us fairy tales of flowers

That only change for fruit-and ours.
Though false, though fleeting, and though vain,
Thou blessed time I say again.-

Glad being, with thy downcast eyes,
And visionary look that lies
Beneath their shadow, thou shalt share
A world, where all my treasures are-
My lute's sweet empire, fill'd with all
That will obey my spirit's call;
A world lit up by fancy's sun!
Ah! little like our actual one.

No. III.

His hand is on the snowy sail,

His step is on the prow,

And back the cold night-winds have flung

The dark curls from his brow;

That brow to which his native heaven

A something of itself has given.

But all too mix'd with earthly stain,
The nameless shadowy care,

Which tells, that though Heaven gave it birth,
Its home has not been there;

And here, the earth and heaven seem blent In one discordant element.

It wears our nature's nobler part; That spirit which doth spurn The weary bondage of our world, And show what man can earn; Where, led by honourable pride, Hero and sage are deified:

Those high imaginings which make
The glory which they hope;
Fine-wrought aspirings, lofty aims,
Which have in youth such scope;
Like tides which, haunted by the moon
Rise but, alas! to fall too soon.

Vain are these dreams, and vain these hopes; And yet 'tis these give birth,

To each high purpose, generous deed, That sanctifies our earth.

He who hath highest aim in view, Must dream at first what he will do.

Upon that youthful brow are traced
High impulses like these;
But all too purposeless, like gales
That wander o'er the seas;
Not winds that bear the vessel on,
Fix'd to one point, and only one.

And meaner workings have deform'd

His natural noble mind;

Those wretched aims which waste the ore

For happier use design'd.

And petty wishes, idle praise,
Destroy the hopes of better days.

And hath no earlier vision taught

A more exalted creed?

Alas! that such a mind should waste

Its powers away, to feed
That wretched vanity which clings
To life's debasing, paltry things.

The worthlessness of common praise,

The dry rot of the mind,

By which its temple secretly

But fast is undermined.

Alas! the praise given to the ear Ne'er was nor e'er can be sincere

And does but waste away the mind
On which it preys :-in vain
Would they in whom its poison lurks
A worthier state attain.
Indifference proud, immortal aim,
Had, aye, the demigods of fame.

The dew of night falls cold around,

Yet can it not allay

The fever burning on thy check,

That eats thy life away:

For thou dost know thy birthright sold

For even less than his of old.

Thou know'st what thou hast power to be, Thou know'st, too, what thou art;

And heavily does discontent

Sit rankling at thy heart;

And thou dost mask thy grief the while With scornful sneer, and bitter smile.

But yet thou art too indolent

From such weak bonds to free Thy better self, and urge thy strength To be what thou might'st be;

Thou dost repent the past, and blame, And yet thy future is the same.

Ay, leave thy rudder to the wave

Thy sail upon the wind,

Leave them to chance, and they will be

Fit likeness of thy mind: Unguided sail, unmaster'd prow,

Are only emblems ;- What art thou ?

No. IV.

His brow is pale with high and passionate thoughts,

That come from heaven like lightning, and consume, E'en while they brighten: youth hath lost its

hopes:

Those sweet and wandering birds, that make its spring

So happy with their music, these are gone;
All scared by one, a vulture, that doth feed
Upon the lifeblood of the throbbing heart-
The hope of immortality! that hope,
Whose altar is the grave, whose sacrifice
Is life-bright, beautiful, and breathing life.
He stands amid the revellers with a joy,
A scarcely conscious joy, in their delight;
In it he has no part, he stands alone;
But the deep music haunts his dreaming ear,-
But the fair forms flit o'er his dreaming eye,-
And exquisite illusions fill his soul
With loveliness to pour in future song.

He leant beside a casement, and the moon
Shed her own stillness o'er the hectic cheek
Whereon the fever of the mind had fed;
His eyes have turn'd towards th' eternal stars,
Drinking the light into their shadowy depths,
Almost as glorious and as spiritual.
The night-wind touch'd his forehead, with it ran
A faint slight shudder through his wasted frame,-
Alas! how little can bring down our thoughts
From their most lofty communings with heaven,
To poor mortality-that passing chill
Recall'd those bitter feelings that attend
Career half follow'd, and the goal unwon:
He thought upon his few and unknown years,
How much his power, how little it had done;
And then again the pale lip was compress'd
With high resolve, the dark eye flash'd with hope
To snatch a laurel from the grasp of death,
For the green memory of an early grave.

No. V.

THY beauty! not a fault is there; No queen of Grecian line

E'er braided more luxuriant hair

O'er forehead more divine.

The light of midnight's starry heaven

Is in those radiant eyes;

The rose's crimson life has given That cheek its morning dyes.

Thy voice is sweet, as if it took

Its music from thy face;

And word and mien, and step and look,

Are perfect in their grace.

And yet I love thee not: thy brow Is but the sculptor's mould:

It wants a shade, it wants a glow,

It is less fair than cold.

Where are thy blushes, where thy tears?

Thy cheek has but one rose: No eloquence of hopes and fears Disturbs its bright repose.

Thy large dark eyes grow not more dark
With tears that swell unshed:

Alas! thy heart is as the ark
That floated o'er the dead.

Hope, feeling, fancy, fear and love
Are in one ruin hurl'd;
Fate's dreary waters roll above
Thy young and other world.

And thou hast lived o'er scenes like these, The terrible, the past,

Where hearts must either break or freeze,And thine has done the last.

Thou movest amid the heartless throng
With school'd and alter'd brow:
Thy face has worn its mask so long,
It is its likeness now.

Where is the colour that once flush'd
With every eager word?

Where the sweet joyous laugh, that gush'd
Like spring songs from the bird?

Where are the tears a word once brought-
The heart's sweet social rain ?
Where are the smiles that only sought
To see themselves again ?

I knew thee in thine earlier hours,

A very summer queen

For some young poet's dream:-those flow'rs Are just what thou hast been.

Wild flow'rs, all touch'd with rainbow hues,
Born in a morning sky,

Lighted with sunshine, fill'd with dews,
Made for a smile and sigh.

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These are the dreams that light my solitude:
Warrior thoughts-had I been a young knight,
And curb'd a gallant steed, and worn a sword,-
Heaven knows I often wish it!-sadness, signs
I fancy many a cheek betrays of love;

Records of beauty, that has seem'd to me

A thing for worship; thoughts that sprung from flowers;
Feelings on which to meditate is all

Woman's philosophy; sorrows that flung
Darkness upon my heart; unkindness, wrong,
Gentle affection too; all that hath made
My minstrel annals, are upon these leaves.

THE NEGLECTED ONE.

AND there is silence in that lonely hall, Save where the waters of the fountain fall,

Light are the woes that to the eyelids spring,
Subdued and soften'd by the tears they bring;
But there are some too long, too well conceal'd,
Too deeply felt, that are but once reveal'd:
Like the withdrawing of the mortal dart,

And the wind's distant murmuring, which takes
Sweet messages from every bud it wakes.

And then the lifeblood follows from the heart;

'Tis more than midnight; all the lamps are gone, Sorrow, before unspoken by a sigh,

Their fragrant oils exhausted, all but one,

But which, once spoken, only hath to die.

A little silver lamp beside a scroll,

Young, very young, the lady was, who now

Where a young maiden leant, and pour'd her soul, Bow'd on her slender hand her weary brow:

In those last words, the bitter and the brief.

Not beautiful, save when the eager thought

How can they say confiding is relief?

In the soft eyes a sudden beauty wrought:

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In vain! she loved:-she loved, and from that Which told love's chronicles; a faint hope

hour

Gone were the quiet loves of bird or flower;
The unread book dropp'd listless on her knee,
The untouch'd lute hung on the bending tree,
Whose unwreath'd boughs no more a pleasant
shade

For the lone dreamings of her twilight made.
-Well might she love him: every eye was turn'd
On that young knight, and bright cheeks brighter
burn'd,

Save one, that grew the paler for his sake :
Alas! for her, whose heart but beat to break;
Who knew too well, not hers the lip or eye
For which the youthful lover swears to die.
How deep, how merciless, the love represt,
That robs the silent midnight of its rest;
That sees in gather'd crowds but one alone;
That hears in mingled footsteps only one;
That turns the poet's page, to only find
Some mournful image for itself design'd;
That seeks in music, but the plaining tone
Which secret sorrow whispers is its own!
Alas for the young heart, when love is there,
Its comrade and its confidant, despair!

How often leant in some unnoticed spot,
Her very being by the throng forgot,
Shrunk back to shun the glad lamp's mocking ray,
Pass'd many a dark and weary hour away,
Watching the young, the beautiful, the bright,
Seeming more lovely in that lonely light;
And as each fair face glided through the dance,
Stealing at some near mirror one swift glance,
Then, starting at the contrast, seck her room,
To weep, at least, in solitude and gloom!
And he, her stately idol, he, with eye
Dark as the eagle's in a summer sky,
And darker curls, amid whose raven shade
The very wild wind amorously delay'd,

With that bright smile, which makes all others dim,

So proud, so sweet,-what part had she in him ? And yet she loved him: who may say, be still, To the fond heart that beats not at our will?

stole,

A sweet light o'er the darkness of her soulMight she not leave remembrance, like the wreath,

Whose dying flowers their scents on twilight breathe;

Just one faint tone of music, low and clear,
Coming when other songs have left the ear?
Might she not tell him how she loved, and pray
A mournful memory for some distant day ?
She took the scroll :-what! bare perhaps to

scorn

The timid sorrow she so long had borne !
Silent as death, she hid her face, for shame
In rushing crimson to her forehead came;
Through the small fingers fell the bitter rain,
And tremblingly she closed the leaves again.
-The hall is lit with rose, that morning hour,
Whose lights are colour'd by each opening

flower:

A sweet bird by the casement sat and sang
A song so glad, that like a laugh it rang,
While its wings shook the jessamine, till the

bloom

Floated like incense round that joyous room. -They found the maiden: still her face was bow'd,

As with some shame that might not be avow'd; They raised the long hair which her face con

ceal'd,

And she is dead, her secret unreveal'd.

A NIGHT IN MAY.

A night not sacred to Spring's opening leaves, But one of crowded festival.

LIGHT and glad through the rooms the gay music is waking,

Where the young and the lovely are gather'd to-night;

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