XVI. Anon some wilder portraiture he draws; Nor living voice nor motion marks around; But storks that to the boundless forest shriek, Or wild-cane arch high flung o'er gulf profound, That fluctuates when the storms of El Dorado sound. XVII. Pleased with his guest, the good man still would ply One innocent --one soldier's child-alone Was spared, and brought to me, who loved him as my own. XVIII. "Young Henry Waldegrave! three delightful years These very walls his infant sports did see, But most I loved him when his parting tears By kindred he was sent for o'er the sea, They tore him from us when but twelve years old, And scarcely for his loss have I been yet consoled!" ΧΙΧ. His face the wanderer hid- but could not hide A tear, a smile, upon his cheek that dwell; And "Speak! mysterious stranger!" Gertrude cried; "It is! it is! - I knew I knew him well! 'Tis Waldegrave's self, of Waldegrave come to tell!" A burst of joy the father's lips declare; But Gertrude speechless on his bosom fell; At once his open arms embraced the pair, Was never group more blest in this wide world of care. XX. "And will ye pardon, then," replied the youth, I meant but o'er your tombs to weep a day, XXI. "But here ye live, ye bloom, in each dear face, And have ye heard of my poor guide, I pray? XXII. "And art thou here? or is it but a dream? And wilt thou, Waldegrave, wilt thou leave us more?" "No, never! thou that yet dost lovelier seem Than aught on earth-than ev'n thyself of yore- I will not part thee from thy father's shore; XXIII. At morn, as if beneath a galaxy Of over-arching groves in blossoms white, XXIV. "Flower of my life, so lovely, and so lone! Scorning, and scorned by fortune's power, than own Than odors cast on heaven's own shrine- to please - And more than all the wealth that loads the breeze, When Coromandel's ships return from Indian seas." XXV. Then would that home admit them happier far While, here and there, a solitary star Flushed in the darkening firmament of June; And silence brought the soul-felt hour, full soon, Ineffable, which I may not portray; A paradise of hearts more sacred sway, In all that slept beneath her soft voluptuous ray. GERTRUDE OF WYOMING. PART III. I. O LOVE! in such a wilderness as this, Here shall no forms abridge, no hours confine, The views, the walks, that boundless joy inspire! Nor, blind with ecstacy's celestial fire, Shall love behold the spark of earth-born time expire. II. Three little moons, how short! admidst the grove And pastoral savannas they consume! While she, beside her buskined youth to rove, Her lovely brow to shade with Indian plume; And interchange of hearts unknown, unseen to share. |