A SERENADE. (FROM THE SPANISH). IF slumber, sweet Lisena! Wake, in thy scorn and beauty, That mourns for thy disdain. Here by the door at midnight, A tale of sorrow cherished Too fondly to depart, Of wrong from love the flatterer, And from my own wild heart. Twice, o'er this vale, the seasons Have brought and borne away The January tempest, The genial wind of May; Yet still my plaint is uttered, My tears and sighs are given To earth's unconscious waters, And wandering winds of heaven. I saw from this fair region, While winter seized the streamlets I saw that to the forest. The nightingales had flown, And every sweet-voiced fountain Had hushed its silver tone. The maniac winds, divorcing The turtle from his mate, Raved through the leafy beeches, And left them desolate. Now May, with life and music, For all the little rills. The minstrel bird of evening Comes back on joyous wings, And, like the harp's soft murmur, Is heard the gush of springs. And deep within the forest Their nuptial chambers seeking- The rugged trees are mingling The ivy climbs the laurel, To clasp the boughs above. They change- but thou, Lisena, Art cold while I complain : Why to thy lover only Should spring return in vain? TO THE MEMORY OF WILLIAM LEGGETT. THE earth may ring, from shore to shore, But he, whose loss our tears deplore, For when the death frost came to lie The words of fire that from his pen His love of truth, too warm, too strong His hate of tyranny and wrong, Burn in the breasts he kindled still. The latest of whose train goes softly out In the red West. The green blade of the ground. Has risen, and herds have cropped it; the young twig Has spread its plaited tissues to the sun; Flowers of the garden and the waste have blown This poem and that entitled the Fountain, with one or two others in blank verse, were intended by the author as portions of a larger poem, in which they may hereafter take their place. |