And that pale woman, suddenly subdued

By some strong passion, in its gushing mood,
Knelt at her feet, and bathed 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 breathed 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, though 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—'t was too lateDead lay the wanderer at her own proud gate! The joy of courts, the star of knight and bardHow 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.

FALLEN 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 Tigris' 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 ceased;
The lights, the perfumes, and the genii tales

Had ceased; the guests were gone. Yet still one voice
Was there the fountain's; through those eastern

courts,

Over the broken marble and the grass,
Its low clear music shedding mournfully.

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 his 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 through forest branches, and is met
By one quick sound and shiver of the leaves,
The spirit of his passionate lament,
As through 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,
And with his white lips rigidly compress'd;
Till, in submissive tones, he ask'd to speak
Once more, ere thrust from earth's fair sunshine forth.
Was it to sue for grace?-His burning heart
Sprang, with a sudden lightning, to his eye,

And he was changed!-and thus, in rapid words, Th' o'ermastering thoughts more strong than death found way.

“And shall I not rejoice to go, when the noble and

the brave,

With the glory on their brows, are gone before me to the grave ?

What is there left to look on now, what brightness in the land?

I hold in scorn the faded world, that wants their princely band!

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My chiefs! my chiefs! the old man comes that in your halls was nursed

That follow'd you to many a fight, where flash'd your sabres first

That bore your children in his arms, your name upon his heart:

Oh! must the music of that name with him from earth depart?

"It shall not be! a thousand tongues, though human voice were still,

With that high sound the living air trumphantly shall fill;

The wind's free flight shall bear it on as wandering seeds are sown,

And the starry midnight whisper it, with a deep and thrilling tone.

"For it is not as a flower whose scent with the dropping leaves expires,

And it is not as a household lamp, that a breath should quench its fires;

It is written on our battle-fields with the writing of the sword,

It hath left upon our desert sands a light in blessings pour'd.

"The founts, the many gushing founts, which to the wild ye gave,

Of you, my chiefs, shall sing aloud, as they pour a joyous wave!

And the groves, with whose deep lovely gloom ye hung the pilgrim's way,

Shall send from all their sighing leaves your praises on the day.

"The very walls your bounty rear'd for the stranger's homeless head,

Shall find a murmur to record your tale, my glorious

dead!

Though the grass be where ye feasted once, where lute and cittern rung,

And the serpent in your palaces lie coil'd amidst its young.

"It is enough! mine eye no more of joy or splendour sees

I leave your name in lofty faith, to the skies and to the breeze!

I go, since earth her flower hath lost, to join the bright and fair,

And call the grave a kingly house, for ye, my chiefs, are there!"