A stranger thro' them broke :—the orphan maid
With her sweet voice, and proffer'd hand of aid,
Turn'd to give welcome; but a wild sad look
Met hers; a gaze that all her spirit shook;
And that pale woman, suddenly subdued

By some strong passion in its gushing mood,

Knelt at her feet, and bath'd them with such tears As rain the hoarded agonies of years

From the heart's urn; and with her white lips press'd The ground they trod; then, burying in her vest Her brow's deep flush, sobb'd out" Oh! undefiled! I am thy mother-spurn me not, my child!"

Isaure had pray'd for that lost mother; wept
O'er her stain'd memory, while the happy slept

In the hush'd midnight; stood with mournful gaze
Before yon picture's smile of other days,

But never breath'd in human ear the name

Which weigh'd her being to the earth with shame.

What marvel if the anguish, the surprise,

The dark remembrances, the alter'd guise,

Awhile o'erpower'd her ?—from the weeper's touch She shrank-'twas but a moment-yet too much For that all humbled one; its mortal stroke

Came down like lightning, and her full heart broke At once in silence. Heavily and prone

She sank, while, o'er her castle's threshold-stone, Those long fair tresses-they still brightly wore Their early pride, tho' bound with pearls no more— Bursting their fillet, in sad beauty roll'd,

And swept the dust with coils of wavy gold.

Her child bent o'er her-call'd her 'twas too late-
Dead lay the wanderer at her own proud gate!
The joy of courts, the star of knight and bard,—
How didst thou fall, O bright-hair'd Ermengarde!

THE MOURNER FOR THE BARMECIDES.

O good old man! how well in thee appears
The constant service of the antique world!
Thou art not for the fashion of these times.

As You Like It.

FALL'N was the House of Giafar; and its name,

The high romantic name of Barmecide,

A sound forbidden on its own bright shores,

By the swift Tygris' wave. Stern Haroun's wrath, Sweeping the mighty with their fame away,

Had so pass'd sentence: but man's chainless heart Hides that within its depths which never yet

Th' oppressor's thought could reach.

'Twas desolate

Where Giafar's halls, beneath the burning sun,

Spread out in ruin lay. The songs had ceas'd;
The lights, the perfumes, and the genii-tales
Had ceas'd; the guests were gone. Yet still one
voice

Was there the fountain's; thro' those eastern courts,
Over the broken marble and the
Its low clear music shedding mournfully.

grass,

And still another voice!—an aged man,

Yet with a dark and fervent eye beneath

His silvery hair, came, day by day, and sate
On a white column's fragment; and drew forth,
From the forsaken walls and dim arcades,

A tone that shook them with its answering thrill
To his deep accents. Many a glorious tale
He told that sad yet stately solitude,
Pouring his memory's fulness o'er its gloom,.

Like waters in the waste; and calling up,

By song or high recital of their deeds,

Bright solemn shadows of its vanish'd race

To people their own halls: with these alone,
In all this rich and breathing world, his thoughts
Held still unbroken converse. He had been

Rear'd in this lordly dwelling, and was now
The ivy of its ruins, unto which

His fading life seem'd bound. Day roll'd on day,
And from that scene the loneliness was fled;

For crowds around the grey-hair'd chronicler
Met as men meet, within whose anxious hearts
Fear with deep feeling strives; till, as a breeze
Wanders thro' forest-branches, and is met
By one quick sound and shiver of the leaves,
The spirit of his passionate lament,

As thro' their stricken souls it pass'd, awoke
One echoing murmur.-But this might not be
Under a despot's rule, and summon'd thence,
The dreamer stood before the Caliph's throne:
Sentenced to death he stood, and deeply pale,