The lark may-like that spirit,-play
In the blue heavens, the livelong day,
And He who gave that sunny thing
A mounting-yet a wearying-wing,
Will not refuse its morning flight,
Because it stooped to earth by night;-
Nor shall the maiden's offering rise
Less stainless to her native skies,

Because the youthful saint reveals
The throbbings which the woman feels,
And pours to heaven her worship, fraught
With passion which itself hath taught!

The notes fall fainter on the ear,
Yet, still, the seraph leans to hear ;-
Though sorrow sighs along the lyre,
And woman's fears have dimmed her fire,
And breathings, meant for God alone,

Echo some pulses of her own!

The angel stays,-and stays to bless
Love-which, itself, is holiness!

TO THE PICTURE OF A DEAD GIRL.

ON FIRST SEEING IT.

How pleasing art thou to me, even in death!

I love thee, yet,---above all women living.

SECOND MAIDEN'S TRAGEDY.

THE same-and oh, how beautiful!—the same
As memory meets thee through the mist of years!-
Love's roses on thy cheek, and feeling's flame
Lighting an eye unchanged in all-but tears!
Upon thy severed lips the very smile

Remembered well, the sunlight of my youth;

But gone the shadow that would steal, the while, To mar its brightness, and to mock its truth!Once more I see thee, as I saw thee last,

The lost restored, -the vision of the past!

How like to what thou wert-and art not now!
Yet oh, how more resembling what thou art!
There dwells no cloud upon that pictured brow,
As sorrows sits no longer in thy heart;

Gone where its very wishes are at rest,

And all its throbbings hushed, and achings healed;

I

gaze,

till half I deem thee to my breast,

In thine immortal loveliness, revealed,

And see thee, as in some permitted dream,

There where thou art what here thou dost but seem!

I loved thee passing well!—thou wert a beam

Of pleasant beauty on this stormy sea!

With just so much of mirth as might redeem
Man from the musings of his misery;

Thou know'st, young mourner! thou hast been

Through good and ill, to me,

Amid a bleak and blighted scene,

A single leafy tree:

A star within a stormy sky;

An island on the main ;

And I have prayed, in agony,
To see thee weep again!

Thou, ever, wert a thing of tears,
When but a playful child,

A very sport of hopes and fears,

And both too warm and wild!

Thy lightest thoughts and wishes wore

Too passionate a strain ;—

To such how often comes an hour,

They never weep again!

Thou wert of those whose very morn
Gives some dark hint of night,

And, in thine eye, too soon was born
A sad and softened light;

And on thy brow youth set the seal
Which years, upon thy brain,
Confirmed too well,-and they who feel

May scarcely weep again!

Yet, once again, within thine eye,

I see the waters start,—

The fountains cannot all be dry

Within so young a heart!

Our love, which clouds have wrapt awhile,

Thirsts for the spirit's rain,

And I shall yet behold thee smile,

Since thou hast wept again!