Imagens das páginas
PDF
ePub

For, while they all were travelling home, Cried Betty, "Tell us, Johnny, do, Where all this long night you have been, What you have heard, what you have And, Johnny, mind you tell us true."

Now Johnny all night long had heard
The Owls in tuneful concert strive;
No doubt too he the Moon had seen;
For in the moonlight he had been
From eight o'clock till five.

And thus, to Betty's question, he

Made answer, like a Traveller bold,

(His very words I give to you,)

seen,

"The Cocks did crow to-whoo, to-whoo,

And the Sun did shine so cold."

-Thus answered Johnny in his glory,

And that was all his travel's story.

LOVE.

All Thoughts, all Passions, all Delights, Whatever stirs this mortal Frame,

All are but ministers of Love,

And feed his sacred flame.

Oft in my waking dreams do I
Live o'er again that happy hour,

When midway on the Mount I lay
Beside the Ruined Tower.

The Moonshine stealing o'er the scene Had blended with the Lights of Eve; And she was there, my Hope, my Joy, My own dear Genevieve!

She leaned against the Armed Man,
The Statue of the Armed Knight:

She stood and listened to my Harp
Amid the ling'ring Light.

Few Sorrows hath she of her own,
My Hope, my Joy, my Genevieve!
She loves me best, whene'er I sing
The Songs, that make her grieve.

I played a soft and doleful Air,
I sang an old and moving Story-
An old rude Song that fitted well

The Ruin wild and hoary.

She listened with a flitting Blush,

With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;

For well she knew, I could not choose

But gaze upon her Face.

I told her of the Knight; that wore
Upon his Shield a burning Brand;
And that for ten long years he wooed
The Lady of the Land.

I told her, how he pin'd: and, ah!
The low, the deep, the pleading tone,
With which I sang another's Love,
Interpreted my own.

She listened with a flitting Blush,

With downcast Eyes and modest Grace;

And she forgave me, that I gazed

Too fondly on her Face!

But when I told the cruel scorn

Which crazed this bold and lovely Knight,

And that he crossed the mountain woods

Nor rested day nor night;

That sometimes, from the savage Den,

And sometimes from the darksome Shade,

And sometimes starting up at once

In green and sunny Glade,

There came, and looked him in the face,

An Angel beautiful and bright;

And that he knew, it was a Fiend,

This miserable Knight!

And how, unknowing what he did,
He leapt amid a murd'rous Band,

And saved from Outrage worse than Death

The Lady of the Land;

And how she wept and clasped his knees,

And how she tended him in vain

And ever strove to expiate

The Scorn, that crazed his Brain:

« AnteriorContinuar »