Few sorrows hath she of her own,
My hope my ioy! my Genevieve !
She loves me best, whene'er I sing

The songs that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful air,
I sang an old and moving story—
An old rude song, that suited well
That ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting blush,
With downcast eyes and modest grace;
For well she knew, I could not choose
But gaze upon her face.

I told her of the Knight that wore
Upon his shield a burning brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her how he pined and ah!
The deep, the low, the pleading tone
With which I sang another's love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting blush,

With downcast eyes,

and modest grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

That crazed that bold and lovely Knight,
And that he crossed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes from the savage den,
And sometimes from the darksome shade
And sometimes starting up at once
In green and sunny glade,-

There came and looked him in the face
An angel beautiful and bright;

1

And that he knew it was a Fiend,
This miserable Knight!

And that unknowing what he did,
He leaped amid a murderous band,
And saved from outrage worse than death
The Lady of the Land ;-

And how she wept, and clasped his knees; And how she tended him in vain

And ever strove to expiate

The scorn that crazed his brain ;—

And that she nursed him in a cave;
And how his madness went away,
When on the yellow forest-leaves
A dying man he lay ;—

His dying words—but when I reached
That tenderest strain of all the ditty,
My faltering voice and pausing harp
Disturbed her soul with pity!

All impulses of soul and sense
Had thrilled my guileless Genevieve;
The music and the doleful tale,
The rich and balmy eve;

And hopes, and fears that kindle hope,
An undistinguishable throng,
And gentle wishes long subdued,
Subdued and cherished long!

She wept with pity and delight,

She blushed with love, and virgin shame; And like the murmur of a dream,

I heard her breathe my name.

Her bosom heaved-she stepped aside,
As conscious of my look she stept-
Then suddenly, with timorous eye
She fled to me and wept.

* Here followed the stanzas, afterwards published separately under the title "Love," (see this vol. p. 126,) and after them came the other three stanzas printed above; the whole forming the introduction to the intended Dark Ladie, of which all that exists is to be found on next page. Late Ed.

**

And now once more, a tale of woe,
A woful tale of love I sing ;
For thee, my Genevieve, it sighs,
And trembles on the string.

When last I sang the cruel scorn,
That crazed this bold and lovely knight,
And how he roamed the mountain-woods,
Nor rested day or night;

I promised thee a sister tale,

Of man's perfidious cruelty;

Come, then, and hear what cruel wrong

Befell the Dark Ladie.

THE BALLAD OF THE DARK LADIE.

A FRAGMENT.

BENEATH yon birch with silver bark
And boughs so pendulous and fair,
The brook falls scattered down the rock :
And all is mossy there!

And there upon the moss she sits,

The Dark Ladie in silent pain;
The heavy tear is in her eye;

And drops and swells again.

Three times she sends her little page
Up to the castled mountain's breast,
If he might find the Knight that wears
The Griffin for his crest.

The sun was sloping down the sky,
And she had lingered there all day,
Counting moments, dreaming fears-
O wherefore can he stay?

She hears a rustling o'er the brook,
She sees far off a swinging bough!

"'Tis He! 'Tis my betrothed Knight! Lord Falkland, it is Thou !"

She springs, she clasps him round the neck,
She sobs a thousand hopes and fears,
Her kisses glowing on his cheeks

She quenches with her tears.

The Knight made answer to the Maid,
While to his heart he held her hand,
"Nine castles hath my noble sire,
None statelier in the land.

"The fairest one shall be my love's,
The fairest castle of the nine!
Wait only till the stars peep out,
The fairest shall be thine:

"Wait only till the hand of eve

Hath wholly closed yon western bars,
And through the dark we two will steal
Beneath the twinkling stars!".

"The dark? the dark? No! not the dark? The twinkling stars? How, Henry? How? O God! 'twas in the eye of noon

He pledged his sacred vow!

"And in the eye of noon, my love,

Shall lead me from my mother's door
Sweet boys and girls all clothed in white
Strewing flow'rs before :