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One in whose gentle bosom I

Could pour my secret heart of woes, Like the care-burthened honey-fly

That hides his murmurs in the rose,—

My earthly Comforter! whose love
So indefeasible might be

That, when my spirit won above,
Hers could not stay, for sympathy.

George Darley [1795-1846]

SONG

SHE is not fair to outward view

As many maidens be,

Her loveliness I never knew

Until she smiled on me;

Oh! then I saw her eye was bright,
A well of love, a spring of light.

But now her looks are coy and cold,
To mine they ne'er reply,
And yet I cease not to behold
The love-light in her eye:

Her very frowns are fairer far

Than smiles of other maidens are.

Hartley Coleridge [1796-1849]

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A lovelier violet disclose,

And her ripe lips the sweetest rose
That's 'neath the skies.

A lute beneath her graceful hand
Breathes music forth at her command;

Eileen Aroon

531

But still her tongue

Far richer music calls to birth

Than all the minstrel power on earth

Can give to song.

And thus she moves in tender light,
The purest ray, where all is bright,
Serene, and sweet;

And sheds a graceful influence round,
That hallows e'en the very ground

Beneath her feet!

Charles Swain (1801-1874]

EILEEN AROON

WHEN like the early rose,

Eileen Aroon!

Beauty in childhood blows,
Eileen Aroon!

When, like a diadem,

Buds blush around the stem,

Which is the fairest gem? —
Eileen Aroon!

Is it the laughing eye,

Eileen Aroon!

Is it the timid sigh,

Eileen Aroon!

Is it the tender tone,

Soft as the stringed harp's moan?
O, it is truth alone,-

Eileen Aroon!

When like the rising day,

Eileen Aroon!

Love sends his early ray,
Eileen Aroon!

What makes his dawning glow,
Changeless through joy or woe?

Only the constant know:-
Eileen Aroon!

I know a valley fair,

Eileen Aroon!

I knew a cottage there,

Eileen Aroon!

Far in that valley's shade
I knew a gentle maid,
Flower of a hazel glade,-

Eileen Aroon!

Who in the song so sweet?
Eileen Aroon!

Who in the dance so fleet?
Eileen Aroon!

Dear were her charms to me,
Dearer her laughter free,

Dearest her constancy,—

Eileen Aroon!

Were she no longer true,
Eileen Aroon!

What should her lover do?

Eileen Aroon!

Fly with his broken chain
Far o'er the sounding main,
Never to love again,—

Eileen Aroon!

Youth must with time decay,
Eileen Aroon!

Beauty must fade away,

Eileen Aroon!

Castles are sacked in war,

Chieftains are scattered far,
Truth is a fixed star,-

Eileen Aroon!

Gerald Griffin [1803-1840]

ANNIE LAURIE

MAXWELTON braes are bonnie

Where early fa's the dew,
And it's there that Annie Laurie

Gie'd me her promise true

To Helen

Gie'd me her promise true,
Which ne'er forgot will be;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doun and dee.

Her brow is like the snaw-drift;
Her throat is like the swan;
Her face it is the fairest

That e'er the sun shone on-
That e'er the sun shone on-
And dark blue is her ee;
And for bonnie Annie Laurie
I'd lay me doun and dee.

Like dew on the gowan lying
Is the fa' o' her fairy feet;
And like the winds in summer sighing,
Her voice is low and sweet-

Her voice is low and sweet

And she's a' the world to me;

And for bonnie Annie Laurie

I'd lay me doun and dee.

TO HELEN

533

William Douglas [ ? ]

HELEN, thy beauty is to me

Like those Nicæan barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, wayworn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, thy classic face,
Thy Naiad airs, have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand,

The agate lamp within thy hand!
Ah, Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

Edgar Allan Poe [1809-1849]

"A VOICE BY THE CEDAR TREE"

From "Maud "

A VOICE by the cedar tree,

I

In the meadow under the Hall!

She is singing an air that is known to me,
A passionate ballad gallant and gay,
A martial song like a trumpet's call!
Singing alone in the morning of life,
In the happy morning of life and of May,
Singing of men that in battle array,
Ready in heart and ready in hand,
March with banner and bugle and fife
To the death, for their native land.

II

Maud with her exquisite face,

And wild voice pealing up to the sunny sky,
And feet like sunny gems on an English green,
Maud in the light of her youth and her grace,
Singing of Death, and of Honor that cannot die,
Till I well could weep for a time so sordid and mean,
And myself so languid and base.

Silence, beautiful voice!

III

Be still, for you only trouble the mind
With a joy in which I cannot rejoice,
A glory I shall not find.

Still! I will hear you no more,

For your sweetness hardly leaves me a choice
But to move to the meadow and fall before

Her feet on the meadow grass, and adore,
Not her, who is neither courtly nor kind,
Not her, not her, but a voice.

Alfred Tennyson [1809-1892]

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