And drank the praise, unknown to all, Of my adored from side to side I traced his features on the trees I peopled with them vale and grove— I worshipped-drank-and fed-and lived on love. III. "Alas! that vision passed away, Fleet as the Iris' melting ray, And left me desolate and lone Lone as despair's departing moan; Lone as the solitary flower That blooms and dies in desert bower ; Lone as the dead within the tomb, Where never ray awakes their gloom. IV. "Kind father! frown not on this tale Of woman's love and woman's woe, For love is woman's bane and bale, And woman's paradise below ; Ay love is manna sent from Heaven To feed the weary, famished heart, That through the desert waste is driyen. Of this life's cold and selfish mart ;It is the magnet of the mind, Where turns the compass of the soul, Which way soever blows the wind, However high the billows roll A bright ray of the Deity, That over sunless chaos burst, Lighting all space eternally, Still blissful, bounteous as at first The loadstar of both heaven and earth Created ere creation's birth. V. "Allured by high ambition's wiles, And bear me o'er the liquid track, Here to abide; But he, on whom my heart relied, Crossed not again the treacherous tide. Th' appointed nuptial day went by, I cannot tell the pangs I felt How oft before the cross I knelt Life-light-hope-faded from my sight, And my sick heart within me died, Upon that faithless-fatal night That should have made me GAMBA's bride. I gladly would have sought the sea, And, from some high Leucadian steep, Beneath the deep oblivious tide. VI. "At last the tidings came that he Had wed a lovely Indian belle, Of fortune and of high degree, Forgetful of his ISABELLE, Who would have bartered Paradise For but one glance of his bright eyes— Ay, would have yielded life-Heaven-all, Alas! that woman e'er should give Then love as fondly any other: From dire misfortunes we may rise, The cold world's heartless sneers to spurn; Enters into the tender heart Hope-effort-sunny skies are vain Its founts will never clear again; 'Tis as an Incubus had laid Its paralyzing finger there Suddenly every quick pulse stayed, And breathed on it the Dead Sea air. VII. "At first delirium seized my brain, And in the mad-house I was cooped, To sit and hear the maniac's cries, To list the prayer-the moan-the sigh Of those who willed, but could not die :-It was some happiness to know I was not all alone in woe. "It passed-and I was free again, But not from grief's corroding pain; I had full liberty to stray Along the ARNO s limpid way, And sit at leisure on its brim- Than their philosophy divined; That I might near him sing and sigh, |