We know not-but she is gone! Her step from the dance, her voice from the song, And the smile of her eye from the festal throng ;— She hath left her dwelling lone! When the waves at sunset shine, We may hear thy voice, amidst thousands more, In the scented woods of our glowing shore, But we shall not know 'tis thine! Ev'n so with the lov'd one flown! Her smile in the starlight may wander by, Go forth, we have loos'd thy chain ! We may deck thy cage with the richest flowers, Which the bright day rears in our eastern bowers, But thou wilt not be lured again. Ev'n thus may the summer pour THE THE SWORD OF THE TOMB. A NORTHERN LEGEND. The idea of this ballad is taken from a scene in "Starkother," a tragedy by the Danish poet Ochlenschlager. The sepulchral fire here alluded to, and supposed to guard the ashes of deceased heroes, is frequently mentioned in the Northern Sagas. Severe sufferings to the departed spirit were supposed by the Scandinavian mythologists to be the consequence of any profanation of the sepulchre. See Ochlenschlager's Plays. "VOICE of the gifted elder time! Voice of the charm and the Runic rhyme! "Voice of the grave! 'tis the mighty hour, When night with her stars and dreams hath power, And my step hath been soundless on the snows, And the spell I have sung hath laid repose On the billow and the blast." Then the torrents of the North, "There shines no sun 'midst the hidden dead, "There is laid a sword in thy father's tomb, Then died the solemn lay, As a trumpet's music dies, The fir-trees rock'd to the wailing blast, The fir-trees rock'd, and the frozen ground And it seem'd that the depths of those awful shades, From the dreary gloom of their long arcades, Gave warning, with voice and sign. But the wind strange magic knows From the grey wood's tossing boughs The pines clos'd o'er him with deeper gloom, He pass'd, in the heart of that ancient wood, Then first a moment's chill Went shuddering through his breast, And the steel-clad man stood still But he cross'd at length, with a deep-drawn breath, The threshold-floor of the hall of Death, And look'd on the pale mysterious fire Which gleam'd from the urn of his warrior-sire, Then darkly the words of the boding strain -"Soft be thy step through the silence deep, But the gleaming sword and shield Of many a battle-day Hung o'er that urn, reveal'd By the tomb-fire's waveless ray. With a faded wreath of oak-leaves bound, With a beating heart his son drew near, For the viewless have fearful might!" |