THE FUGITIVES.

I.

THE waters are flashing,
The white hail is dashing,
The lightnings are glancing,
The hoar-spray is dancing
Away!

The whirlwind is rolling,

The thunder is tolling,

The forest is swinging,

The minster bells ringing

Come away!

The Earth is like Ocean,
Wreck-strewn and in motion:

Bird, beast, man and worm
Have crept out of the storm-
Come away!

II.

"Our boat has one sail,

And the helmsman is pale ;

A bold pilot I trow,

Who should follow us now,'

Shouted He

L

And she cried: "Ply the oar!
Put off gaily from shore!"—
As she spoke, bolts of death
Mixed with hail, specked their path
O'er the sea.

And from isle, tower and rock,
The blue beacon cloud broke,
And though dumb in the blast,
The red cannon flashed fast
From the lee.

III.

"And, fear'st thou, and fear'st thou ?

And, see'st thou, and hear'st thou ?

And, drive we not free

O'er the terrible sea,

I and thou?"

One boat-cloak did cover

The loved and the lover

Their blood beats one measure,

They murmur proud pleasure
Soft and low ;-

While around the lashed Ocean,

Like mountains in motion,

Is withdrawn and uplifted,
Sunk, shattered and shifted
To and fro.

IV.

In the court of the fortress
Beside the pale portress,

Like a blood-hound well beaten,
The bridegroom stands, eaten
By shame;

On the topmost watch-turret,
As a death-boding spirit,
Stands the grey tyrant father,
To his voice the mad weather
Seems tame;

And with curses as wild
As ere clung to child,

He devotes to the blast

The best, loveliest and last
Of his name!

A LAMENT.

SWIFTER far than summer's flight,
Swifter far than youth's delight,
Swifter far than happy night,

Art thou come and gone:

As the earth when leaves are dead,
As the night when sleep is sped,
As the heart when joy is fled,
I am left lone, alone.

The swallow Summer comes again,
The owlet Night resumes her reign,
But the wild swan Youth is fain

To fly with thee, false as thou.

My heart each day desires the morrow,

Sleep itself is turned to sorrow,

Vainly would

my winter borrow

Sunny leaves from any bough.

Lilies for a bridal bed,

Roses for a matron's head,

Violets for a maiden dead,

Pansies let my flowers be:

On the living grave I bear,
Scatter them without a tear,

Let no friend, however dear,

Waste one hope, one fear for me.

THE PINE FOREST

OF THE CASCINE, NEAR PISA.

DEAREST, best and brightest,

Come away,

To the woods and to the fields!
Dearer than this fairest day,
Which like thee to those in sorrow,
Comes to bid a sweet good-morrow
To the rough year just awake
In its cradle in the brake.

The eldest of the hours of spring,

Into the winter wandering,

Looks upon the leafless wood;

And the banks all bare and rude
Found it seems this halcyon morn,
In February's bosom born,

Bending from heaven, in azure mirth,
Kissed the cold forehead of the earth,
And smiled upon the silent sea,
And bade the frozen streams be free;
And waked to music all the fountains,
And breathed upon the rigid mountains,
And made the wintry world appear
Like one on whom thou smilest, dear.