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Of that our land, whose wilds and floods
Barren and dark although they be,
Were dearer than these chestnut woods;
Those heathy paths, that inland stream,
And the blue mountains, shapes which seem
Like wrecks of childhood's sunny dream;
Which that we have abandoned now,
Weighs on the heart like that remorse
Which altered friendship leaves. I seek
No more our youthful intercourse:
That cannot be ! Rosalind, speak,
Speak to me.

come,

Leave me not.-When morn did

When evening fell upon our common home,
When for one hour we parted,-do not frown;
I would not chide thee, though thy faith is broken
But turn to me. O by this cherished token
Of woven hair, which thou wilt not disown,
Turn, as 'twere but the memory of me,

And not my scorned self who prayed to thee.

ROSALIND.

Is it a dream, or do I see

And hear frail Helen? I would flee
Thy tainting touch; but former years
Arise, and bring forbidden tears;
And my o'erburthened memory
Seeks yet its lost repose in thee.
I share thy crime. I cannot choose
But weep for thee: mine own strange grief
But seldom stoops to such relief;

Nor ever did I love thee less,

Though mourning o'er thy wickedness

Even with a sister's woe. I knew
What to the evil world is due,
And therefore sternly did refuse
To link me with the infamy
Of one so lost as Helen. Now
Bewildered by my dire despair,
Wondering I blush and weep that thou
Shouldst love me still,-thou only !-There,
Let us sit on that gray stone,
Till our mournful talk be done.

HELEN.

Alas! not there; I cannot bear
The murmur of this lake to hear.
A sound from thee, Rosalind dear,
Which never yet I heard elsewhere
But in our native land, recurs,

Even here where now we meet. It stirs
Too much of suffocating sorrow!

In the dell of yon dark chestnut wood

Is a stone seat, a solitude

Less like our own. The ghost of peace
Will not desert this spot. To-morrow,
If thy kind feelings should not cease,
We may sit here.

And I will follow.

ROSALIND.

Thou lead, my sweet,

HENRY.

'Tis Fenici's seat

Where you are going?-This is not the way, Mamma; it leads behind those trees that grow Close to the little river.

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But it might break any one's heart to see

You and the lady cry so bitterly.

HELEN.

Go home,

It is a gentle child, my friend.
Henry, and play with Lilla till I come.
We only cried with joy to see each other;
We are quite merry now. Good night.

The boy

Lifted a sudden look upon his mother,
And in the gleam of forced and hollow joy
Which lightened o'er her face, laughed with the

glee

Of light and unsuspecting infancy,

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And whispered in her ear, Bring home with you That sweet, strange lady friend." Then off he flew

But stopped, and beckoned with a meaning smile, Where the road turned. Pale Rosalind the while, Hiding her face, stood weeping silently.

In silence then they took the way
Beneath the forest's solitude.

It was a vast and antique wood,
Through which they took their way;
And the gray shades of evening
O'er that green wilderness did fling
Still deeper solitude.

Pursuing still the path that wound

The vast and knotted trees around,

Through which slow shades were wandering,

To a deep lawny dell they came,

To a stone seat beside a spring,

O'er which the columned wood did frame

A roofless temple like the fane

Where, ere new creeds could faith obtain,
Man's early race once knelt beneath

The overhanging deity.

O'er this fair fountain hung the sky,

Now spangled with rare stars.

The snake,

The pale snake, that with eager breath
Creeps here his noontide thirst to slake,
Is beaming with many a mingled hue,
Shed from yon dome's eternal blue,
When he floats on that dark and lurid flood

In the light of his own loveliness;

And the birds that in the fountain dip

Their plumes, with fearless fellowship
Above and round him wheel and hover
The fitful wind is heard to stir
One solitary leaf on high;
The chirping of the grasshopper
Fills every pause. There is emotion

In all that dwells at noontide here:
Then, through the intricate wild wood,
A maze of life and light and motion
Is woven. But there is stillness now;
Gloom, and the trance of Nature now.
The snake is in his cave asleep;
The birds are on the branches dreaming;
Only the shadows creep;

Only the glow-worm is gleaming;
Only the owls and the nightingales
Wake in this dell when daylight fails,
And gray shades gather in the woods;
And the owls have all fled far away
In a merrier glen to hoot and play,
For the moon is veiled and sleeping now.
The accustomed nightingale still broods
On her accustomed bough,

But she is mute; for her false mate

Has filed and left her desolate.

This silent spot tradition old

Had peopled with the spectral dead.
For the roots of the speaker's hair felt cold
And stiff, as with tremulous lips he told

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