"Awakening hope has named the name Of love, or blown its spark to flame. Restlessness, but as the winds range From leaf to leaf, from flower to flower; Changefulness, but as rainbows change, From colour'd sky to sunlit hour. Ay, well indeed may minstrel sing,— What have the heart and year like spring?"

"Oh, love is timid in its birth! Watching her lightest look or stir, As he but look'd and breathed with her. Gay words were passing, but he leant In silence; yet, one quick glance sent,— His secret is no more his own, When has woman her power not known?"

"Autumn was falling, but the pine Seem'd as it mock'd all change; no sign Of season on its leaf was seen, The same dark gloom of changeless green. But like the gorgeous Persian bands 'Mid the stern race of northern lands, The chesnut boughs were bright with all That gilds and mocks the autumn's fall."

"The first, the very first; oh! none Can feel again as they have done; In love, in war, in pride, in all The planets of life's coronal, However beautiful or bright,— What can be like their first sweet light?"

"Oh, she had yet the task to learn How often woman's heart must turn To feed upon its own excess Of deep yet passionate tenderness! How much of grief the heart must prove That yields a sanctuary to love!"

"The cold north wind which bows to earth The lightness of the willow's birth Bends not the mountain cedar trees; Folding their branches from the breeze, They stand as if they could defy The utmost rage of storm and sky."

"Alas! that every lovely thing Lives only but for withering,— That spring rainbows and summer shine End but in autumn's pale decline."

"Oh, where is there the heart but knows Love's first steps are upon the rose!"

"'Tis not for Spring to think on all The sear and waste of Autumn's fall: —"

"Alas! for him whose youthful fire Is vowed and wasted on the lyre,— Alas! for him who shall essay, The laurel's long and dreary way! Mocking will greet, neglect will chill His spirit's gush, his bosom's thrill; And, worst of all, that heartless praise Echoed from what another says."

"For his was now the loveliest part Of the young poet's life, when first, In solitude and silence nurst, His genius rises like a spring Unnoticed in its wandering; Ere winter cloud or summer ray Have chill'd, or wasted it away,"

"Oh, softest is the cheek's love-ray When seen by moonlight hours Other roses seek the day, But blushes are night flowers."

"The day is past, and the moonbeams weep O'er the many that rest in their last cold sleep; Near to the gashed and the nerveless hand Is the pointless spear and the broken brand; The archer lies like an arrow spent, His shafts all loose and his bow unbent; Many a white plume torn and red, Bright curls rent from the graceful head, Helmet and breast-plate scattered around, Lie a fearful show on the well-fought ground; While the crow and the raven flock overhead To feed on the hearts of the helpless dead, Save when scared by the glaring eye Of some wretch in his last death agony."

"Love may be increased with fears, May be fanned with sighs, Nurst by fancies, fed by doubts But without Hope it dies!"

"And this is Love! Oh! why should woman love; Wasting her dearest feelings, till health, hope, Happiness, are but things of which henceforth She'll only know the name?"

"It is a gem which hath the power to show If plighted lovers keep their faith or no : If faithful, it is like the leaves of spring ; If faithless, like those leaves when withering."

"He had a power; in his eye There was a quenchless energy, A spirit that could dare The deadliest form that Death could take, And dare it for the daring's sake."

"They met with cold words, and yet colder looks: Each was changed in himself, and yet each thought The other only changed, himself the same."

"But this is as a dream, — the plough has pass'd Where the stag bounded, and the day has looked On the green twilight of the forest-trees. This Oak has no companion ! - - - -"

"Violets! — deep-blue violets! April's loveliest coronets! There are no flowers grow in the vale, Kiss'd by the dew, wooed by the gale, — None by the dew of the twilight wet, So sweet as the deep-blue violet!"

"Oh, fame is as the moon above, Whose sun of light and life is love. There is more in the smile of one gentle eye Then the thousand pages of history; Than the loudest plaudits the crowd can raise. Take the gems in glory's coronal, And one smile of beauty is worth them all.—"

"—for earth were too like heaven, If length of life to love were given."

"I do love violets: They tell the history of woman's love; They open with the earliest breath of spring; Lead a sweet life of perfume, dew, and light; And, if they perish, perish with a sigh Delicious as that life."

"There was a grave just closed. Not one seemed near, To pay the tribute of one long—last tear! How very desolate must that one be, Whose more than grave has not a memory!"

"It must be worth a life of toil and care,— Worth those dark chains the wearied one must bear Who toils up fortune's steep,—all that can wring The worn-out bosom with lone-suffering,— Worth restlessness, oppression, goading fears, And long-deferred hopes of many years,— To reach again that little quiet spot, So well loved once, and never quite forgot;— To trace again the steps of infancy, And catch their freshness from their memory!"

"How very desolate that breast must be, Whose only joyance is in memory! And what must woman suffer, thus betrayed?— Her heart's most warm and precious feelings made But things wherewith to wound: that heart—so weak, So soft—laid open to the vulture's beak!"

"Then they were silent:—words are little aid To Love, whose deepest vows are ever made By the heart's beat alone. Oh, silence is Love's own peculiar eloquence of bliss!"

"It is a night of summer,—and the sea Sleeps, like a child, in mute tranquillity. Soft o'er the deep-blue wave the moonlight breaks; Gleaming, from out the white clouds of its zone,"

"I loved him as young Genius loves, When its own wild and radiant heaven Of starry thought burns with the light, The love, the life, by passion given. I loved him, too, as woman loves-- Reckless of sorrow, sin, or scorn: Life had no evil destiny That, with him, I could not have borne!"

"It is most sad to watch the fall Of autumn leaves!--but worst of all It is to watch the flower of spring Faded in its fresh blossoming!"

"There are a thousand fanciful things Linked round the young heart's imaginings. In its first love-dream, a leaf or a flower Is gifted then with a spell and a power: A shade is an omen, a dream is a sign, From which the maiden can well divine Passion's whole history."

"It was my evil star above, Not my sweet lute, that wrought me wrong; It was not song that taught me love, But it was love that taught me song."

"But Love's bright fount is never pure; And all his pilgrims must endure All passion's mighty suffering Ere they may reach the blessed spring."

"My power was but a woman's power; Yet, in that great and glorious dower Which Genius gives, I had my part: I poured my full and burning heart"

"Statues but known from shapes of the earth, By being too lovely for mortal birth; Paintings whose colours of life were caught From the fairy tints in the rainbow wrought; Music whose sighs had a spell like those That float on the sea at the evening's close Language so silvery, that every word Was like the lute's awakening chord;"

"I am a daughter of that land, Where the poet's lip and the painter's hand Are most divine, —where the earth and sky, Are picture both and poetry— I am of Florence."

"And you, my fine poet, who thought that the earth To another such minstrel could never give birth, Already your works are all thrown on the shelf, And their author condemn'd as an ignorant elf.— Yes ; look thro' the world, and this truth you will find That, once out of sight, you are soon out of mind."

"You may smile at the fanciful structures I rear, And say, that my castles are built but on sand ; Like bubbles, that on the blue waters appear, That sparkle, invite, and then sink from the hand."

"I Give thee, love, a blooming braid; I cull'd it at eve's 'witching hour ; I twin'd it in the moon's sweet shade, When starlight dew was on each flower."

"How innocent, how beautiful thy sleep ! Sweet one, 'tis peace and joy to gaze on thee!"

"Thou, Poetry, in absence wert a chain, Binding our hearts together: where so well As in thy numbers, could I pour my soul, In soothing tenderness? 'twas bliss, to make Thought visible to those of whom I thought."

"... Oh! burning are the drops That wounded love will shed—like to the dew Falling from off the poison tree, the blight Still following the touch ;—ah ! other tears Soften and bless—but these destroy the heart."

"'Tis soothing, oh ! most soothing to the heart, To rove 'mid scenes where once we have been blest! Each tree, each blossom, has a thrilling charm; They seem memorials of those happier hours : The very sigh that tells they are no more, Is sweet unto the spirit; former days, And former feelings, rise upon the soul, Dear as they once have been."

"The leaves were gone from all, save where the pine Threw the wide shadow of its unchang'd green. I could not envy it that fadeless state.— Ah ! who would be the last, the only one That ruin spares—no ; if the blight must pass O'er all around, let it pass o'er me too !"

"Alas ! alas ! too often conscience sleeps, When pleasure's syren numbers lull its rest.—"

"... absence is The moonlight of affection ;"

"Once more my harp awakens ; once again, Tho' all unworthy be my hand to twine Th' etherial blossomings of poetry, I would call forth its numbers, yet would feel Its music fall like sunlight on my soul."

"Hope, frail but lovely shadow ! thou dost come, Like a bright vision on our pathway here, Making the gloomy future beautiful, And gilding our horizon with a light, The fairest human eye can ever know."

"Methinks adieu Is cold, when uttered with aught else but tears."