Sweet girl! may thy relics be laid in that shrine!

For though death, we are told, is unconscious of love, Yet it soothes me to hope they may mingle with mine, As our spirits will mingle for ever above.

And if, when the race of our being is run,

Any record remain of the loves that we bore, Our story shall be, that in life we were one, And in dying we met to be parted no more.

SAPPHO'S DEATH SONG.

L. E. L.

FAREWELL, my lute!-and would that I
Had never waked thy burning chords!
Poison has been upon thy sigh,

And fever has breathed in thy words.

Yet wherefore, wherefore should I blame
Thy power, thy spell, my gentlest lute ?
I should have been the wretch I am,
Had every chord of thine been mute.

It was my evil star above,

Not my sweet lute that wrought me wrong;

It was not song that taught me love,

But it was love that taught me song!

If song be past, and hope undone,

And pulse, and head, and heart are flame,

It is thy work, thou faithless one!

But no! I will not name thy name!

Sun-god, lute, wreath, are vow'd to thee!

Long be their light upon my grave,

My glorious grave yon deep blue sea;

I shall sleep calm beneath its wave!

The Improvisatrice.

STANZAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN WRITTEN ON THE ENVELOPE OF A LOCK OF HAIR,

Alaric Watts.

PLEDGE of a love as

pure

and deep

As ever thrill'd in mortal breast!
I would not, could I break thy sleep,

Recal thee from the couch of rest,
Where thou art now in peace reclining,
A stranger to the world's repining!

No! bright as was thy brief career,

In this wild waste of storm and gloom,
And much as I have wish'd thee here,
My soul's dark sorrows to illume,

In loneliness I'd rather languish,
Than have thee here to share my anguish!

Besides, would even Heaven allow

Thy advent to this earth again,
That boon to thee were cruel now,

Since human ills-a numerous train,

Would cross thee in thy path of life,
And stir thy young sweet thoughts to strife!

Yet, looking on this sun-bright tress Unlocks the source of dried up tears, And thoughts intense and maddening press On my hot brain;-though hopes or fears, Since thou and thy sweet mother perish'd, Have ne'er by me been felt or cherish'd.

BLOSSOM OF LOVE! Yes, on my mind
Strange and unusual feelings rush;
The flood-gates of my heart unbind,
And bid its waters wildly gush,
As, gazing on these threads, I see
The all that now remains of thee!

BLOSSOM OF LOVE! farewell!-farewell!
I go to join the noisy throng;
But in my soul's deep, inmost cell,

Thoughts that to thine and thee belong,

Will ever bloom as fresh and fair

As when they first were planted there!

And, oh! if tears of woe may nourish
The flowers of memory in the breast,
Then those in mine will surely flourish,
And each succeeding hour invest
Their stems with charms unknown before,-
Till we three meet to part no more!

TO THE PO. *

Byron.

RIVER, that rollest by the ancient walls
Where dwells the lady of my love; when she
Walks by thy brink, and there, perchance, recals
A faint and fleeting memory of me ;-

What if thy deep and ample stream should be
A mirror of my heart, where she may read
The thousand thoughts I now betray to thee,
Wild as thy wave, and headlong as thy speed.

What do I say ? "A mirror of my heart!"

Are not thy waters sweeping, dark, and strong: Such as my feelings were and are, thou art,

And such as thou art were my passions long.

Time may have somewhat tamed them; not for ever
Thou overflowest thy banks; and not for aye

Thy bosom overboils: congenial river,

Thy floods subside-and mine have sunk away!

But left long wrecks behind us, and again,

Borne on our old unchanged career we move:

Thou tendest wildly to the main,

And I to loving one I should not love,

• These verses were written by Lord Byron, when the Countess G. was at Ravenna, and he was travelling down the Po to join her.

The current I behold will sweep beneath

Her native walls, and murmur at her feet; Her eyes will look on thee, when she shall breathe The twilight air, unchained from Summer's heat.

She will look on thee: I have look'd on thee,
Full of that thought, and from that moment ne'er
Thy waters could I name-ne'er name or see,
Without the inseparable sigh for her,

Her bright eyes will be imaged on thy stream-
Yes, they will meet the wave I gaze on now;
But mine cannot witness, even in a dream,
That happy wave repass me in its flow.

The wave that bears my tear returns no more,
Will she return, by whom that tear shall sweep?
Both tread thy bank, both wander on thy shore,
I near the source, she by the dark blue deep.

But that which keepeth us apart, is not

Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, But the distractions of a various lot,

Ah, various as the climates of our birth.

A stranger loves a lady of the land,

Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood Is all meridian, as if never fann'd

By the black wind that chills the Polar flood.

My blood is all meridian: were it not

I had not left my clime:-J should not be,

In spite of torture ne'er to be forgot,

A slave again of love-at least of thee.