In swan-like glory glides a white-wing'd boat,

Calm as a cloud along its blue career.

Within, like beings from a purer sphere,
A youth and his confiding maiden sit,

Her yielding waist environ'd with his arm;
Above them,-beautiful the starry dome!

Beneath, the sighing of romantic waves

Breaks on the pleasing calm: oh, lovely pair!

Warm is the gush of young affection; sweet
The overflowing of affianced hearts,

Each into each with holy rapture pour'd;

Now is the spring-time of the soul, whose bloom

Is love, ne'er felt but once, and ne'er but once

Enjoy'd! On would ye float for ever thus,
O'er moonlight seas, in one immortal bliss,
Silence, the language of delighted hearts.

And hast thou, Curse of the primeval crime ! On one of these thy vulture glances fix'd? Shall knells of death moan heavy on the wind, When marriage peals should merrily resound In tuneful rapture o'er the village spire?Alas! for every age Death finds a grave, And youthful forms, as oft as hoary heads,

Are pillow'd there.—Thou lov'd and loving one! From the dark languish of thy liquid eye,

So exquisitely rounded, darts a ray

Of truth, prophetic of thine early doom;
And on thy placid cheek there is a flush

Of fate, the beauty of consumption there!

Few note that fatal bloom; for bless'd by all,

Thou movest through thy noiseless sphere, the life

Of one, the darling of a thousand hearts.

Yet in thy chamber, o'er some graceful task
When delicately bending, oft unseen,

Thy mother looks with telescopic glance

Down the dim waste of time, and sees thee stretch'd

A pallid martyr, shrouded for the tomb!

A year hath travell❜d to eternity;

And now the shadows of the grave grow dark
Upon the maiden; yet no fruitless wish,
Or word abrupt, betrays unlovely thoughts.
Of gloom and discontent within; she fades
As gently as the flower declines;—not false
Το present scenes, and yet prepared to die.
Beautiful resignation, and the hopes

From the rich fountain of her faith derived,

Have breathed around her a seraphic air
Of wither'd loveliness. The gloss of life
And worldly dreams are o'er; but dewy Morn,
And dim-eyed Eve, and all the mental gleams
Of rapture, darted from regretted joys,-
Delight her still: and oft when twilight comes,
She gazes on the damask glow of heaven
With all the truth of happier days, until

A sunny fancy wreathes her faded cheek
Tis but a pleasing echo of the past,
A music rolling from remember'd hours!

;

The day is come, led gently on by Death; With pillow'd head all gracefully reclined, And glossy curls in languid clusters wreath'd, Within a cottage room she sits, to die;

Where from the window, in a western view,

Majestic ocean rolls.-A summer eve

Veils the calm earth, and all the glowing air
Stirs faintly, like a pulse; against the shore

The waves unrol them with luxurious joy,
While o'er the midway deep her eye-glance roams,

Where like a sea-god glares the travell❜d sun

O'er troops of billows, marching in his beam!

From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, her

eyes

Are lifted, bright with wonder and with awe,

Till through each vein reanimation rolls!—
'Tis past; and now her filmy glance is fix'd
On the rich heavens, as though her spirit gazed
On that immortal world, to which 'tis bound:

But sunset, like a burning palace, fades,

In hues of visionary pomp destroy'd ;

And day and beauty have together died!

For there like sculptured death the maiden lies,

All exquisite as an embodied dream!