"Gentle ladye, in fair Normandie, in mine own rugged land, Dwelleth she who first my knighthood's spurs bound on with her white hand;
I have seen as lovely maids, good sooth, in Greece and Palestine,
And I gaze upon more beauty now in those dark eyes of thine,
Tho' strayed my course to court, and listed field and lordly tower,
To hold with lance my loved Adela, beauty's peerless flower;
But fast upbraiding memory comes, her smiles are in my eyes,
I must fly betime, for charms like thine my fealty strangely tries."
Passed away that youthful knight, so leal in love, in war so bold,
While in the sunbeams dropped the maiden's tears in showers of
gold,
Long, long sighed the Princess Henegild with weight of woe untold.
In the gloomy mountain's lap
Lies the village dark and quiet;
All have passed their labour-nap,
And the peasant, half-awaking,
A blind, yawning stretch is taking,
Ere he turns to rest again;
There is not a sound of riot,
Not a sound save that of pain,
Where some aged bones are aching;
Lo! the moon is in the wane
Even the moon a drowse is taking.
By the blossomed sycamore,
Filled with bees when day is o'er it,
Stands the Forge, with smoky door:
Idle chimney, blackened shed—
All its merry din is dead;
Broken shaft and wheel disused
Strew the umbered ground before it,
And the streamlet's voice is fused
Faintly with the cricket's chirrup,
As it tinkles clear and small
Round the glooming hearth and wall,
Hung with rusty shoe and stirrup.
Yes, the moon is in the wane:
Hark! the sound of horses tramping
Down the road with might and main;
Through the slaty runnels crumbling,
Comes a carriage swinging, rumbling;
Round the steep quick corner turning,
Plunge the horses, puff'd and champing:
Like the eyes of weary ghosts,
The red lamps are dimly burning.
Now 'tis stopt-and one springs down,
And cries unto the sleeping town-
"Ho! for a blacksmith-ho! awake!
Bring him who will his fortune make-
The best, the best the village boasts!"
Up springs the brawny blacksmith now,
And rubs his eyes, and brushes off
The iron'd sweat upon his brow,
Hurries his clothes and apron on,
And calls his wife, and wakes his son,
And opes the door to the night air,
And gives a husky cough;
Then hastens to the horses, standing
With drooping heads and hotly steaming, And sees a dark-eyed youth out-handing
A sweet maiden, light and beaming.
He strikes a lusty shoulder-blow:
"Four shoes," he cries, “are quickly wanting;" His face is in an eager glow.
"Take my purse and all that's in its
Heart, if you in twenty minutes
Fit us for the road." The smith
Looks at the wearied horses panting,
Then at the clustering gold;
And thinks, as he falls to his work,
He dreams-a mind-dream, rusty murk,
That this is but a fairy myth,
A tale to-morrow to be told.
But now the forge fire spirts alive
To the old bellows softly purring,
In the red dot the irons dive;
Brighter and broader it is glowing,
Stronger and stronger swells the blowing:
The bare armed men stand round and mutter
Lowly while the cinders stirring-
Ho! out it flames mid sparkles dropping,
Splitting, glittering, flying, hopping;
Heavily now the hammers batter,
All is glaring din and clatter.
In the cottage dimly lighted
By the taper's drowsy glare,
Stands the gentle girl benighted;
By her side for ever hovers
That dark youth, oh, best of lovers!
Daring all that love will dare
With an aspect firm and gay:
Now the moon seems shining clearer,
Hark! a sound seems swooning nearer
From the heathy hills; the maid
Lists with ear acute, and while
One there with brave assuring smile,
Smooths her forehead's chestnut braid,
The danger softly dies away.
Now the forge is in a glow,
Bellows roaring, irons ringing;
Three are made, and blow on blow
Sets the patient anvil singing;
"Another shoe-another, hark ye,"
Ra-ra, ra-ra, ra-ra-rap;
Split the ruddy sheddings sparky,
Ra-ra, ra-ra, ra-ra-rap;
Strikes the quick and lifted hammer
On the anvil bright and worn;
While amid the midnight there,
Beyond the noisy streaming glare,
With a yellow misty glamour,
Looks the moon upon the corn.
On the hill-road moving nigher,
Hurries something dimly shooting,
Glances from two eyes of fire:
"Haste, oh, haste!" they're working steady; Cries the blacksmith ". now they're ready."
Pats the pawing horses, testing
On the ground their iron footing;
Helps the lady, lightly resting
On his black arm up the carriage;
Takes the gold with doubt and wonder-
And as o'er the stones and gorses
Tramp the hot pursuing horses,
Cries with voice of jolly thunder-
"Trust me, they won't stop the marriage!"
Scarce a minute's past away
When, oh, magic scene! the village
Lies asleep all hushed and grey;
But hark! who throng again the street
With roaring voices, brows of heat?
Come they here the town to pillage?
No. Across the road, o'erthrown,
Carriage creaks and horses moan;
"Blacksmith, ho!" the travellers cry-
Not a taper cheers the eye;
While a-top a distant hill
Flushed with dawn-light's silent warning,
Speed the lovers toward the morning
With a rapid right good will;
While behind that father fretting,
The pale night-sick moon is setting.
BY JOHN FRANCIS WALLER, LL.D.
MELLOW the moonlight to shine is beginning;
Close by the window young Eileen is spinning;
Bent o'er the fire her blind grandmother, sitting,
Is croaning, and moaning, and drowsily knitting-
Eileen, achora, I hear some one tapping."
""Tis the ivy, dear mother, against the glass flapping." "Eileen, I surely hear somebody sighing."
""Tis the sound, mother dear, of the summer wind dying.” Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
"What's that noise that I hear at the window, I wonder?"
""Tis the little birds chirping the holly-bush under."
"What makes you be shoving and moving your stool on,
And singing all wrong that old song of 'The Coolun ?""
There's a form at the casement-the form of her true love-
And he whispers, with face bent, "I'm waiting for you, love;
Get up on the stool, through the lattice step lightly,
We'll rove in the grove while the moon's shining brightly."
Merrily, cheerily, noisily whirring,
Swings the wheel, spins the reel, while the foot's stirring;
Sprightly, and lightly, and airily ringing,
Thrills the sweet voice of the young maiden singing.
The maid shakes her head, on her lip lays her fingers,
Steals up from the seat-longs to go, and yet lingers;
A frightened glance turns to her drowsy grandmother,
Puts one foot on the stool, spins the wheel with the other.
Lazily, easily, swings now the wheel round;
Slowly and lowly is heard now the reel's sound;
Noiseless and light to the lattice above her
The maid steps-then leaps to the arms of her lover.
Slower and slower and slower the wheel swings;
Lower-and lower-and lower the reel rings;
Ere the reel and the wheel stopped their ringing and moving,
Thro' the grove the young lovers by moonlight are roving.
OCH HONE! and what will I do?
Sure my love is all crost
Like a bud in the frost;
And there's no use at all in my going to bed,
For 'tis dhrames and not sleep that comes into my head,
And 'tis all about you,
My sweet Molly Carew
And indeed 'tis a sin and a shame!
You're complater than Nature
In every feature,
The snow can't compare
With your forehead so fair,
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