Poems descriptive, dramatic, legendary and contemplative

Her brow is raised, her eye in air,—
The spirit burns and triumphs there!—
Mark the sacred strength that dwells
Where that pure white forehead swells;
Lo! the sacred fire that streams
From that deep eye's sudden gleams,
As a shaft of lightning driven
Through the cloud-veil'd deeps of heaven!

What the passion in that soul,
Thus that bursts and scorns control?
Can it be the lowly birth,—

197

Passion, which has root in earth—
Which may govern thus, and move,
Soul so high with mortal love?—
No! the feeling in that eye
Finds its birth-place in the sky.

She hath thrown aside the pen,
Which she straight resumes agen:—
Coursing o'er the spotless leaf,
Lo! her heart hath told its grief:
What a sorrow in that tone!
What a passion in that moan!
And the big tear, in her eye,
How it speaks the destiny!

Read the letters;—speak them;—lo!
What a story writ, of woe;
Woe is me, that heart like thine,
Kindling thus, and pure, should pine;
Woe is me, that in thy morn,
Thou shouldst blossom thus forlorn;
Yet the doom is said in sooth,
Thou shalt perish in thy youth:—

Lose the promise at thy birth;
Lose the pleasant green of earth;
Lose the waters, lose the light,
Sweet from sense and fair from sight;
Ere the breaking of thy heart,
From each dear affection part,
Die in spirit, ere the doom
Drags the mortal to the tomb!—

Thus the fearful prophecy
Glares before thy kindling eye;

198

Thy own fingers pen the word,
Which thy coal-touch'd ear hath heard;
Thou art doom'd to witness all,
Thou hast loved and cherish'd, fall,—
Fall,—the deadliest form of death—
From the friendship, from the faith!

This is worst—for death is naught
To the high and hopeful thought:
'Tis a deeper pang that rends,
In the parting of firm friends;
In the wrenching of that tie
Which links souls of sympathy;
In the hour that finds us lone,
Making o'er the false our moan.

Death she fears not;—but to part,
With each young dream of the heart;
That first hope that brought the rest,
All its sweet brood, to the breast;
Where a virgin in her cares,
Love a mother grew to snares,
Which, with harbor'd vipers strove,
At the last, to strangle Love!—

Yet her sacred soul is strong;
She maintains the struggle long;
In her cheek the pale is bright,
And the tear-drop hath its light;
On the lip the moan that's heard
Is the singing of a bird,
Striving for the distant quire;—
And her fingers clasp the lyre.

199

She is dying,—dying fast,
But in music to the last;—
Oh! sad swan, thy parting lay
Is the sweetest of thy day;
And it hath a winged might
Bearing up the soul in flight,
Still ascending, seeking place,
'Mong the angels, for a grace.

University of Virginia Library

SYBILLA.

IN ILLUSTRATION OF A PICTURE.