LXII.

The wind rose free and singing:--when for ever,
O'er that sole spot of all the watery plain,

I could have bent my sight with fond endeavour
Down, where its treasure was, its glance to strain;
Then rose the reckless wind!-Before our prow
The white foam flash'd-ay, joyously-and thou
Wert left with all the solitary main

Around thee-and thy beauty in my heart,

And thy meek sorrowing love-oh! where could that depart?

LXIII.

I will not speak of woe; I may not tell

Friend tells not such to friend-the thoughts which rent

My fainting spirit, when its wild farewell

Across the billows to thy grave was sent,

Thou, there most lonely!-He that sits above,

In his calm glory, will forgive the love

His creatures bear each other, ev'n if blent

With a vain worship; for its close is dim

Ever with grief, which leads the wrung soul back to Him!

LXIV.

And with a milder pang if now I bear

To think of thee in thy forsaken rest,

If from my heart be lifted the despair,

The sharp remorse with healing influence press'd,
If the soft eyes that visit me in sleep

Look not reproach, though still they seem to weep;
It is that He my sacrifice hath bless'd,

And fill'd my bosom, through its inmost cell,

With a deep chastening sense that all at last is well.

LXV.

Yes! thou art now-Oh! wherefore doth the thought

Of the wave dashing o'er thy long bright hair,

The sea-weed into its dark tresses wrought,

The sand thy pillow-thou that wert so fair!

Come o'er me still?-Earth, earth!—it is the hold
Earth ever keeps on that of earthy mould!

But thou art breathing now in purer air,

I well believe, and freed from all of error,

Which blighted here the root of thy sweet life with terror.

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LXVI.

And if the love which here was passing light

Went with what died not-Oh! that this we knew, But this!—that through the silence of the night,

Some voice, of all the lost ones and the true, Would speak, and say, if in their far repose, We are yet aught of what we were to those We call the dead!-their passionate adieu, Was it but breath, to perish ?-Holier trust Be mine!-thy love is there, but purified from dust!

LXVII.

A thing all heavenly!—clear'd from that which hung
As a dim cloud between us, heart and mind!
Loos'd from the fear, the grief, whose tendrils flung
A chain, so darkly with its growth entwin'd.
This is my hope!--though when the sunset fades,
When forests rock the midnight on their shades,
When tones of wail are in the rising wind,
Across my spirit some faint doubt may sigh ;

For the strong hours will sway this frail mortality!

LXVIII.

We have been wanderers since those days of woe,
Thy boy and I!-As wild birds tend their young,

So have I tended him-my bounding roe!`
The high Peruvian solitudes among ;

And o'er the Andes-torrents borne his form,

Where our frail bridge hath quiver'd midst the storm 20. -But there the war-notes of my country rung,

And, smitten deep of Heaven and man, I fled

To hide in shades unpierc'd a mark'd and weary head.

LXIX.

But he went on in gladness-that fair child!

Save when at times his bright eye seem'd to dream,
And his young lips, which then no longer smil❜d,
Ask'd of his mother!-that was but a gleam

Of Memory, fleeting fast; and then his play
Through the wide Llanos 21 cheer'd again our way,
And by the mighty Oronoco stream,

On whose lone margin we have heard at morn,

From the mysterious rocks, the sunrise-music borne 22.

LXX.

So like a spirit's voice! a harping tone,

Lovely, yet ominous to mortal ear,

Such as might reach us from a world unknown,
Troubling man's heart with thrills of joy and fear!
'Twas sweet!—yet those deep southern shades oppress'd
My soul with stillness, like the calms that rest
On melancholy waves 23: I sigh'd to hear

Once more earth's breezy sounds, her foliage fann'd,
And turn'd to seek the wilds of the red hunter's land.

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LXXI.

And we have won a bower of refuge now,
In this fresh waste, the breath of whose repose

Hath cool'd, like dew, the fever of my brow,
And whose green oaks and cedars round me close,
As temple-walls and pillars, that exclude

Earth's haunted dreams from their free solitude;

All, save the image and the thought of those
Before us gone; our lov'd of early years,'

Gone where affection's cup hath lost the taste of tears.