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 ;—

Why wander thus her thoughts away,
When to the Virgin she would pray?
Why steals her eye to GAMBA's seat?
Why hangs it on his lady sweet ?
Why glistens through her lashes jet
The crystal tear

When he is near,

Like dew-drops on the violet?
Then slides along the drooping lid,
And steals adown her cheek unbid,
As if it sought from the dark fount,

Where it so long had been confined,

Above the troubled brim to mount,

Some clime of sunnier light to find?

She's ever at confessional,

Yet lingers-falters in the hall,

And turns away without confessing,

As something on her soul were pressing, Which she would tell to priest nor Heaven,

Though sure by both to be forgiven.

CANTO II.

I.

'Tis eve-soft lies the Indian sky. Not as within this northern clime,

E'en in its most congenial time Of summer melting melody,

But with one golden gush of light,

As Heaven had centred all her smiles

Within those soft aerial isles,

To 'luminate the sultry night,

When languid Beauty wanders forth To breathe the breezy, balmy air,— Arouse her ivory limbs from sloth,

And decorate her raven hair

With pearly flowers,

From fairy bowers,

Which ever bud and blossom there,

And smile beneath seraphic care.

Fond Echo sleeps on rock and hill,
The nightingale's sweet voice is still
Beside the silent, silver rill-