And, when her pride had crush'd me, she might see
A love-wing'd spirit glide in glory by
Striking the tent of its mortality!

TO A STORM-STAID BIRD

Trembler! a month is past, and thou
Wert singing on the thorn,
And shaking dew-drops from the bough
In the golden haze of morn!

My heart was just as thou, as light--
As loving of the breeze,
That kiss'd thee in its elfin flight,
Through the green acacia trees.

And now the winter snow-flakes lie
All on thy widow'd wing;
Trembler! methinks I hear thee sigh
For the silver days of spring.

But shake thy plume--the world is free
Before thee--warbler, fly!
Blest by a sunbeam and by me,
Bird of my heart! good-bye!

THE WOLF-DROVE

No night-star in the welkin blue! no moonshade round the trees
That grew down to the sea-swept foot of the ancient Pyrenees!
The cold gray mantle of the mist, along the shoulders cast
Of those wild mountains, to and fro, hung waving in the blast.

A snow-crown rising on their brows, in royalty they stood,
As if they vice-reign'd on a throne of winter solitude;
Those hills that rose far upward, till in majesty they bent
Their world's great eye-orb on her own immortal lineament!

The howl, the long deep howl was heard, the rushing like a wave
Of the wolf train from their forest haunt, in some old mountain cave;
Like a sea-wave, when the wind is horsed behind its foamy crest,
And it lifts upon the shell-built shore, its azure-spotted breast.

They came with war-whoop, following each other, like a thread,
Through the long labyrinth of trees, in sunless archway spread;
Their gnarled trunks in shadowy lines rose dimly, few by few,
Mail'd in their mossy armouring,--a pathless avenue!

In sooth, there was a shepherd girl by her aged father's side;
He gazed upon her deep dark eyes, in glory and in pride;
The mother's soul was living there,--the image full and wild,
Of one he loved--of one no more, was beaming in her child.

And she was at her father's side, her raven tresses felt
Upon his care-worn cheek, as gay and joyfully she knelt,
Kissing the old man's tears away, by the embers burning faint,
While she sung the holy aves, and a vesper to her saint.

"Now bar the breezy lattice, love!--but hist! how fares the night?
Methoug