SONG.

Weeping for thee, my love, thro’ the long day, Lonely and wearily life wears away. Weeping for thee, my love, thro’ the long night — No rest in darkness, no joy in light!

Naught left but Memory whose dreary tread Sounds thro’ this ruined heart, where all lies dead — Wakening the echoes of joy long fled! Of many a stanza, this alone

Had‘ scaped oblivion — like the one Stray fragment of a wreck which thrown With the lost vessel's name ashore Tells who they were that live no more.

When thus the heart is in a vein Of tender thought, the simplest strain Can touch it with peculiar power — As when the air is warm, the scent

Of the most wild and rustic flower Can fill the whole rich element — And in such moods the homeliest tone That's linked with feelings, once our own —

With friends or joy gone by — will be Worth choirs of loftiest harmony! But some there were among the group Of damsels there too light of heart

To let their spirits longer droop, Even under music's melting art; And one upspringing with a bound From a low bank of flowers, looked round

With eyes that tho’ so full of light Had still a trembling tear within; And, while her fingers in swift flight Flew o'er a fairy mandolin,

Thus sung the song her lover late Had sung to her — the eve before That joyous night, when as of yore All Zea met to celebrate

The feast of May on the sea-shore.