No Tweed-no storied Helicon

Colossus neither Moslem pile, Nor gilded Temple of the Sun,

To consecrate thy name, bright Isle !— Thou hast nor classic memories,

Nor border songs of ladies fair,

Nor spirit-stirring chivalries;

But thou hast records of despair, And tales of deep, enduring love, As ever minstrel's fancy wove.

II.

Oh! what is there like that deep grief,
That finds, nor seeks on earth relief!
That stands from sympathy apart,

Unto its own fond broodings wed,
Feeding upon the writhing heart,

As the Promethean Vulture fed ! "Tis as the Aspic's poisonous stingsPiercing into the heart's fine stringsThe loathsome death-worm o'er us creeping, Ere we within the tomb are sleeping.

III.

The zephyrs sleep in NIEVA's vale-
On wave and wold each rougher gale-

While every ear along the grove

Bends down to drink the notes of love,
The weary warblings of despair,

That on the balmy evening rise,

Like diapasons of soft sighs.

The minstrel is a maiden fair,

With delicately moulded form,

As ere was wrought by Grecian master— Dark eyes through which the Soul beams warm

A cheek of amber alabaster

A step, once in her native dells,

Lithe, lighter than the young gazelle's-
A smile with more than HEBE's spell-

A voice soft as the Siren's shell,

Or tones to Houri's harp-strings given,
To welcome warriors brave to Heaven.
She wears the wandering Gipsy's guise,

She sweeps the wandering Gipsy's lute-
But those who gaze on this disguise-

Of grief so eloquently mute,
Know they behold no Gipsy maid,
In these habiliments arrayed.

The tiny foot her garb exposes,
And little slipper close encloses-

Her fairy hand and taper fingers

Her brow, where pensive Beauty lingers

Her modest mien and movement free,
Betray too well her high degree.

IV.

Beneath the solemn yew all day
She pours some melancholy lay,
Nor raises once her pensive eye
To greet the lingerers passing by ;-
Nor heeds the needful, glittering pelf,
That at her fairy feet they throw,-
Her thoughts seem never bent on self,
She only thinks and sings of woe-
Of sighs, and tears, and slighted troth-
Stern Fate's irrevocable darts,

And woman's worth, and wrong, and wroth—

Love's faithless vows and broken hearts

These best befit her mournful lute,

That on all other themes is mute.

V.

Young dark-eyed maidens from the hill

Come down and sit by moonlit rill;

Hidalgos, from rich domicil,

Linger along the balmy lea,

To list her love-lorn minstrelsy;

And when on violet bed reposing,

Kind slumber her soft eyelids closing,
They slowly, solemnly draw near,
And pitying view the sleepless tear,
That o'er her cheek unbidden flows
From the perennial fount of woes.

Kind-hearted damsels seek her there,
And bid her to their cots repair-
To flee the noontide's burning ray;
But with a sigh she turns away,
Serenely weeping-singing-roams,
Where never rude molester comes ;-

"Tis as some halo of blest light,

Encircles her by day and night,

Within which evil dare not come,

Nor aught save guardian Nymph and Gnome;

The tempest even shuns her form—

God shields the hapless maid from harm!

VI.

Three weary years have rolled away

Since first they heard her pensive lay,

Yet none know from what shore she came,

Nor why, nor what

may be her name

They only gather from her song,
That she hath loved and suffered wrong.

Some deem she came from Spanish lands,
And others from Ausonian strands,

Opine that she hath followed over

The dangerous sea some faithless lover.

Some ween Count GAMBA, to whose gate At midnight she is seen to go,

And weep, and murmur strains of woe, Hath some part in the maiden's fate; And some frown on this foul suspicion, And prate about her low condition, As lofty souls could only be

Found clad in garbs of high degree.—

Some guess she is the spirit pale,

Of maiden murdered in that vale,

By a false lover long ago;-

They guess, and guess-yet nothing know.

VII.

When vesper bells are tolling loud,
She seeks the temple with the crowd,
And strives to chant the Holy Creed-
To count aright each amber bead,
But rightly never can succeed;—