e the stranger blushed,
Drooping in silence her embarrassed head.

"Speak on!" imperially the Pole-Queen said,
Charmed in her own despite, by that sweet face;
While LIR-LIR to KOLONA leaned and smiled,
Commending, in a whisper, what she saw:
And a soft flutter through the courtly train
Stirred, like the shimmer of a moonlit breeze
Kissing the waves:--"I will thy message hear!"

And so the maiden, gathering courage, said:
"Far in a blooming isle, in Southern seas,
I had a home, whose walls, of marble cool,
Were chequered by soft shadows, hovering,
Like flocks of birds, about its battlements;
For, all around, were trees, whose glistening leaves
Danced ever, in the sunlight or the moonlight,
To the soft flutes of the Arcadian winds;
And to the sleepy music, drowsily
The gorgeous flowers nodded their lovely heads.
Through the bright days, and in my sleep at night,
I heard the ripples breaking on the sand,
Till their continual murmur grew to be
A thing of course,--like sunshine and fresh air,--
Or like the love which grew into my life,
As color into flowers when they unfold.
The fluttering foliage and the sighing waves
Seemed whispering "BERTHO!" ever in my ear;
For BERTHO was my lover, and my heart
Could find no other meaning in their sound.
I was a princess of that blooming isle;
But BERTHO--he was poor! still, not so poor
As brave, high-souled, and strangely venturesome.
He trusted to the sea to gain his wealth,
As well as knowledge and a manly fame.
Ah! how I wept, when told that we must part!
How much more bitter tears I shed that day
On which he left me, wretched, by the shore,
Watching the gleam of his receding sails!

"Dim grew the golden air from that dark hour.
Like some rich flower, torn from the wooing kiss
Of the warm sun, and hidden in a cell,
I drooped, and lost the redness of my cheeks.
All the wild thrills that used to come and go,
Tumultuous, through my happy heart, and send
The pulses flying through my frame, died out.

"And thus in sadness two long summers passed.
In madness or in wisdom my poor brain
Wrought out a vision in my troubled sleep,
Through which I saw my BERTHO, and he bade
My soul be still and fear not,--I should take
My little boat, in which I used to skirt
The island shore