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And drank the praise, unknown to all,
That through the storied gallery rung:
I lined my walls with likenesses

Of my adored from side to side

I traced his features on the trees
Along the sunny ARNO's tide-

I peopled with them vale and grove-
Them in my fine embroidery wove—

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,
Count GAMBA Sought these Indian Isles
To win a sumptuous home for me-
Some lovelier spot beyond the sea,
Then hither was to hasten back,

And bear me o'er the liquid track,
A wedded bride

Here to abide;

But he, on whom my heart relied,

Crossed not again the treacherous tide.

Th' appointed nuptial day went by,
Yet GAMBA's vessel drew not nigh,
Neither came missive o'er the sea
To mitigate my misery.—

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,
That severed far my love from me,

And, from some high Leucadian steep,
Have made a second Sapphic leap,
And sought that rest the world denied,

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,
To be one hour his menial.

Alas! that woman e'er should give
Her young heart wholly to another,
Who may for her a few days live,

Then love as fondly any other:
While like the dove she mourns her fate,
But never finds another mate.

From dire misfortunes we may rise,

And cleave again the upper skies

May fly the scenes of fear and dread-
Forget to mourn the hallowed dead-
With calm serenity may learn

The cold world's heartless sneers to spurn ;
But when Love's keen envenomed dart

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,
A strange, wild sense of burning pain
Shot through my heart and every vein-

And in the mad-house I was cooped, Where, like a fettered bird, I drooped: Yet, 'twas some solace unto me,

To sit and hear the maniac's cries, Which through my cell ran constantly, And wild as demon harmonies;

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.

vin.

"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—
They humored well my every whim,
But deeper plans absorbed my mind,
Than their philosophy divined;
I strayed, regardless of my fate,
To Roncesvalles' storied Strait,
There plied the Gipsy's tuneful art,
Then sought the idol of my heart
Beneath this lovely Indian sky,

That I might near him sing and sigh,

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