ose they are--I'll not confess!
GIPSY SONG.
A GIPSY SONG
Pile of embers in the darkness,
Sparks expire as they fly--
Night conceals us from the passing,
On the bridge we'll say good-by!
At the parting, shawl of crimson
Cross my shoulders thou shalt lace,
At an end the days swift passing,
Met within this shaded place.
In the morning, with first splendour,
All my life compelled to rove--
I shall leave with other gipsies
Seeking happiness and love.
How does fate foretell my future?
Who, to-morrow by my side,
O'er my heart will loose with kisses
Knots by thy dear hand fast tied?
Flash of embers in the darkness,
Sparks expire as they fly--
Night conceals us from the passing,
On the bridge we'll kiss good-by!
POLONSKY.
AT LAST
No word,--not e'en a sigh, my darling!
Together now the silence keeping;
In truth as o'er some grave stone leaning
The silent willows low are weeping,
And drooping o'er it so are reading--
I read in thy tired heart at last,
That days of happiness existed,
And that this happiness is past.
PLESTCHEEFF.
BY AN OPEN WINDOW
So sultry is the hour I throw the casement wide,
Fall on my knees beside it in the gloom,
And cowering before me lies the balmy night,
Wafted aloft the breath of lilac bloom.
The nightingale her plaint from a near thicket sobs,
I listen to the singer, share the woe--
With a longing for my home within me waking,
The home I looked on last so long ago!
And the nightingales of home with their familiar song!
And lilacs in my childhood gardens fair!
How the languors of the night possess my being,
Restoring my lost youth on perfumed air!
THE GRAND DUKE CONSTANTINE.
WITH THE GREATNESS OF GOD
With the greatness of God all my heart is on fire!
Such a beauty to earth does He lend--
He created eternity for our desire,
To our torment has given an end.
NADSON.
THE POET
Ne'er have I sung in idle hours of dreaming,
With verse harmonious and sweet-voiced rhyme,
I have sung only when in tempest raging
My soul was shaken by a power sublime!
For each thought I have suffered and been troubled,
No dream creation painless from me torn,
The blessed lot of Poet not seldom seeming
A cross intolerable to be borne!
Oft have I sworn to evermore keep silence,
To mingle and be lost among the crowd,
But when the winds once more their strings are sweeping--
Aeolian harps must ever
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