The old and wise, with judgment stern,
In curious search were seen to turn
With careless glance from all the rest,
And own that image first and best:
The artist boy was seen to pause,
Ecstatic in his rapt applause.
No idle wanderer passed it by,
But marked with brighter, closer eye.
They lingered there to ask and trace

The legend such a form might lend;
But naught was known save what its base
Told, in the words, " Melaia's Friend."

A ROMAUNT.

TRACY DE VORE AND HUBERT GREY,

A TALE.

KNOW ye not the stripling child

That strolls from the castle wall,
To play with the mate he likes the best,
By the mountain waterfall?

With delicate hand, and polished skin,

Like Parian marble fair;

Know ye him not? "Tis Tracy de Vore,
The Baron's beautiful heir.

"Tis Tracy de Vore, the castle's pride,
The rich, the nobly born,

Pacing along the sun-lit sod

With the step of a playful fawn.

The waving plume in his velvet cap
Is bound with a golden band;
His rich and broidered suit exhales
The breath of Arabia's land.

His light and fragile form is graced
With a girdle of silvered blue;

And of matchless azure the belt would seem,
Were it not for his eyes' own hue.

Look on those eyes, and thou wilt find
A sadness in their beam,

Like the pensive shade that willows cast
On the sky-reflecting stream.

Soft-flowing curls of an auburn shade

Are falling around his brow!

There's a mantling blush that dwells on his cheek,
Like a rose-leaf thrown on the snow.

There's a halcyon smile spread o'er his face,

Shedding a calm and radiant grace;

There's a sweetness of sound in his talking tones,
Betraying the gentle spirit he owns.

And scarcely an accent meets his ear

But the voices of praise and love;

Caressed and caressing, he lives in the world
Like a petted and beautiful dove.

He is born to bear the high command
Of the richest domain in Switzerland;
And the vassals pray that fame and health
May bless the child of rank and wealth!

Oh! truly does every lip declare

What a cherub-like boy is Lord Tracy's heir!

And now on the green and sedgy bank
Another stripling form is seen:

1

His garb is rough, his halloo loud ;
He is no baron's heir, I ween.

Know ye him not? 'tis the mountain child, Born and reared 'mid the vast and the wild; And a brighter being ne'er woke to the day Than the herdsman's son, young Hubert Grey.

There's a restless flashing in his eye,

That lights up every glance;
And now he tracks the wheeling bird;
And now he scans the distant herd;
And now he turns from earth and sky,
To watch where the waters dance.

A ruddy tinge of glowing bronze
Upon his face is set;
Closely round his temples cling
Thick locks of shaggy jet.

Mark him well! there's a daring mien
In Hubert Grey that is rarely seen;

And suiting that mien is the life he leads,
Where the eagle soars, and the chamois feeds.

He loves to climb the steepest crag,
Or plunge in the rapid stream;.
He dares to look on the thunder cloud,
And laugh at the lightning's gleam.

The snow may drift, the rain may fall,
But what does Hubert care?

As he playfully wrings, with his hardy hand
His drenched and dripping hair.

He can tread through the forest, or over the rocks,
In the darkest and dreariest night,

With as sure a step, and as gay a song,
As he can in the noonday's light.

The precipice, jutting in ether air,
Has naught of terror for him;
He can pace the edge of the loftiest peak
Without trembling of heart or limb.

He heeds not the blast of the winter storm,
Howling on o'er the pine-covered steep;
In the day he will whistle to mimic its voice,
In the night it lulls him to sleep.

And now he has brought, from his mountain home,

(With feet and forehead bare,)

A tiny boat, and lance-wood bow,

The work of his young hand I trow,

To please the Baron's heir;

And now, at the waterfall, side by side,

Stand the herdsman's son and the castle's pride!

Tracy de Vore hath high born mates

Invited to share his play;

But none are half so dear to him

As lowly Hubert Grey.

He hath a spaniel taught to mark,

And wait his word with a joyous bark;

He hath a falcon taught to fly

When he looses its silver chain;