tillery of
imported literature, to set her tinder in a blaze--any other small
contingency would have answered equally well. All that she wanted was an
opportunity to fall; and that she would soon have found, under any
circumstances whatsoever. The lover, however, sees nothing of all this,
but relates the story of his unfortunate love-affair with as much
simplicity as if he had been mourning the fall of the mother of mankind
from paradise.

The lover relates his tale to his friend, the author. He begins by
entreating him to

"Bear with me, in case
Tears come. _I feel them coming by the smarting in my face_."

And then he proceeds to introduce us to this Lilian, the immaculate
mistress of his soul--

"She could see me coming to her with the vision of the hawk;
Always hasten'd on to meet me, _heavy passion in her walk;_
Low tones to me grew lower, sweetening so her honey talk,

"That it fill'd up all my hearing, drown'd the _voices of the birds_,
The _voices of the breezes_, and the _voices of the herds_--
For to me the lowest ever were the loudest of her words."

"Heavy passion in her walk!"--what a delicate and delectable young lady
she must have been! Then, as to the fact so harmoniously expressed, of
her accents drowning "the voices of the birds, the voices of the
breezes, and the voices of the herds," we may remark, that the first and
second never require to be drowned at all, being nearly inaudible at any
rate, even during the most indifferent conversation--so that there was
nothing very remarkable in their being extinguished by the plaintiveness
of the lady's tones; while, with regard to the voices of the herds, if
she succeeded in drowning these--the cattle being near at hand, and
lowing lustily--she must indeed have roared to her lover "like any
nightingale."

The description of her is thus continued--

"On her face, then and for ever, was the seriousness within.
Her sweetest smiles (and sweeter did a lover never win)
_Ere half-done grew so absent, that they made her fair cheek thin._

"On her face, then and for ever, thoughts unworded used to live;
So that when she whisper'd to me, 'Better joy earth cannot give'--
Her lips, though shut, continued, 'But earth's joy is fugitive.'

"For there a _nameless something_, though suppress'd, still spread
around;
The same was on her eyelids, if she look'd towar