“Ilia quidem dam te fugeret per flumina præceps
Immanem ante pedes hydrum moritura puella
Servantem ripas altâ non vidit in herbâ.”
_Virg._ Georg. IV.
Art can ne’er thine anguish lull,
Maiden passing beautiful!
Strive thou may’st,--’tis all in vain;
Art shall never heal thy pain:
Never may that serpent-sting
Cease thy snow-white foot to wring.
Mourner thou art doom’d to be
Unto all eternity.
Joy shall never soothe thy grief;
Thou must fall as doth the leaf
In thine own deep forest-bower,
Where thy lover, hour by hour,
Hath, with songs of woodland glee.
Like the never-wearied bee.
Fed him on the fond caress
Of thy youth’s fresh loveliness.
Youth!--’tis but a shadow now;--
Never more, lost maid, must thou
Trip it with coy foot across
Leafy brooks and beds of moss;
Never more, with stealthy tread,
Track the wild deer to his bed,
Stealing soft and silently,
Like the lone moon o’er the sea.
Vain thy lover’s whisper’d charm;
Love can never death disarm;
Hush’d the song he oft hath sung,--
Weak his voice, his lyre unstrung.
Think, then, if so hard to heal
Is the anguish thou dost feel.
Think--how bitter is the smart
When that wound is in the heart!
‘ϵ . . .
_Hampstead._
* * * * *
~Notice.~
THE INDEX, &c. _to the present volume of the_ TABLE BOOK will _conclude
the work_.