Bernardo del Carpio..

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Then covering with his steel-gloved hands his darkly mournful brow,

“No more, there is no more,” he said, “to lift the sword for now.

My king is false, my hope betrayed, my father-oh! the worth,

The glory and the loveliness, are passed away from earth!

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'I thought to stand where banners waved, my sire! beside

thee yet

I would that there our kindred blood on Spain's free soil had met !

Thou wouldst have known my spirit then-for thee my fields were won, —

And thou hast perished in thy chains, as though thou hadst no son!"

Then, starting from the ground once more, he seized the monarch's rein,

Amidst the pale and wildered looks of all the courtier train; And with a fierce, o'ermastering grasp, the rearing warhorse led,

And sternly set them face to face the king before the dead!

"Came I not forth upon thy pledge, my father's hand to kiss?

Be still, and gaze thou on, false king! and tell me what is

this!.

The voice, the glance, the heart I sought-give answer, where are they?

If thou wouldst clear thy perjured soul, send life through this cold clay!

The Fountain of Oblivion.

"Into these glassy eyes put light-Be still! keep down 'thine ire,

Bid these white lips a blessing speak-this earth is not my sire!

Give me back him for whom I strove, for whom my blood was shed,—

Thou canst not-and a king! His dust be mountains on thy head!"

He loosed the steed; his slack hand fell-upon the silent face

He cast one long, deep, troubled look-then turned from that sad place:

His hope was crushed, his after-fate untold in martial strain,

His banner led the spears no more amidst the hills of Spain.

ONE kind from that fountain,

NE draught, kind fairy! from that fountain deep,

a

And lone affections, which are griefs, to steep
In the cool honey-dews of dreamless rest;
And from the soul the lightning-marks to lave-
One draught of that sweet wave!

Yet, mortal! pause! Within thy mind is laid
Wealth, gathered long and slowly; thoughts divine

The Fountain of Oblivion.

Heap that full treasure-house; and thou hast made
The gems of many a spirit's ocean thine ;-
Shall the dark waters to oblivion bear
A pyramid so fair?

Pour from the fount! and let the draught efface
All the vain lore by memory's pride amassed;
So it but sweep along the torrent's trace,
And fill the hollow channels of the past;
And from the bosom's inmost folded leaf,
Raze the one master-grief!

ΙΟΙ

Yet pause once more! All, all thy soul hath known,
Loved, felt, rejoiced in, from its grasp must fade!
Is there no voice whose kind, awakening tone
A sense of spring-time in thy heart hath made?
No eye whose glance thy day-dreams would recall?
-Think-wouldst thou part with all?

Fill with forgetfulness! There are, there are
Voices whose music I have loved too well-
Eyes of deep gentleness; but they are far-
Never! oh, never, in my home to dwell!
Take their soft looks from off my yearning soul-
Fill high th' oblivious bowl!

Yet pause again! With memory wilt thou cast
Th' undying hope away, of memory born?
Hope of reunion, heart to heart at last,

No restless doubt between, no rankling thorn?
Wouldst thou erase all records of delight
That make such visions bright?

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The Sunbeam.

Fill with forgetfulness, fill high!-Yet stay--
'Tis from the past we shadow forth the land
Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way,
And the soul's friends be wreathed in one bright band.
Pour the sweet waters back on their own rill-
I must remember still.

For their sake, for the dead-whose image naught
May dim within the temple of my breast—
For their love's sake, which now no earthly thought
May shake or trouble with its own unrest,
Though the past haunt me as a spirit—yet
I ask not to forget.

THE SUNBEAM.

HOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall—
A joy thou art, and a wealth to all!

A bearer of hope unto land and sea—
Sunbeam! what gift hath the world like thee?

Thou art walking the billows, and ocean smiles;
Thou hast touched with glory his thousand isles;
Thou hast lit up the ships and the feathery foam,
And gladdened the sailor like words from home.

To the solemn depths of the forest-shades,

Thou art streaming on through their green arcades;
And the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow
Like fire-flies glance to the pools below.

The Sunbeam.

I looked on the mountains-a vapour lay,
Folding their heights in its dark array:
Thou brakest forth, and the mist became
A crown and a mantle of living flame.

I looked on the peasant's lowly cot-
Something of sadness had wrapt the spot;
But a gleam of thee on its lattice fell,

And it laughed into beauty at that bright spell.

To the earth's wild places a guest thou art,
Flushing the waste like the rose's heart;
And thou scornest not from thy pomp to shed
A tender smile on the ruin's head.

Thou tak'st through the dim church-aisle thy way,
And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day,
And its high, pale tombs, with their trophies old,
Are bathed in a flood as of molten gold.

And thou turnest not from the humblest grave,
Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave;
Thou scatter'st its gloom like the dreams of rest,
Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast.

Sunbeam of summer! oh, what is like thee?
Hope of the wilderness, joy of the sea!—
One thing is like thee to mortals given,

The faith touching all things with hues of heaven!

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