WRITTEN UNDER THE SYCAMORE TREE

At the Sand Rock Hotel, Niton, Isle of Wight.

"Sans les femmes, les deux extrémités de la vie seroient sans secours, et le milieu sans plaisir."

THERE are few who have wander'd more widely than I

In this planet of pleasure and pain,

And few, very few, who would venture a sigh

To pilgrim it over again.

But tho' I have met, in the pathway of life,

With what the world" miseries" call,

Yet LOVE, (that Nepenthe for sorrow and strife,)
LOVE, LOVE, has aton'd for them all.

Yes! far I have roam'd, and o'er many a tide

Have tasted the poet's wild bliss

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WRITTEN UNDER THE SYCAMORE TREE

'Midst scenes of enchantment, but never yet sigh'd

In a lovelier Eden than this.

Here, bower'd in stillness, pavilion'd in sweets,

I bend an idolater's knee,

And woman, O Heaven, 'tis woman that greets

The vows of her true devotee.

Not Araby's vales, nor the cinnamon hills
Outscent this sweet garden's perfumes,

Nor a flower that in Tempe its fragrance distills,

But in this little Paradise blooms.

And roses blush here, while they're weeping their dew,
The drops blending one with the other

As lovers, long parted, when fondling anew,
Will mingle their joy-tears together.

While I pillow my head on this Sycamore tree,
My thoughts rush o'er yonder blue main

To sunny Iberia, and bright Italy,

And to those I may ne'er clasp again.

Dear lands, ever bless'd, 'twas the fond of thy clime
Who taught me at eve, when we met,

The chords of thy pensive guitarra to chime,

And to rattle thy gay castinet.

Sweet souls, ye are prison'd within my warm heart, (And a warmer ye never will meet,)

Where, lock'd in its core-cells, all captive thou art,

'Till its pulses no longer shall beat.

And trust me, tho' absent, at vesper-tide dim,
A prayer for thy bliss shall arise,

Pure, fervid and deep, from the song-lip of him

Who was sun'd in thy dark, loving eyes.

THE TROUBADOUR-LOVER.

ΤΟ

"Dost thou remember, love,

Those gentle moonlights, when my fond guitar

Was regular as convent vesper hymn?

Beneath thy lattice?"

A quiquonque les entendra.

OI could sing thee such a song
As sure would win thy virgin truth,
Such a warm strain as might belong
To Ovid's sultry lyre in sooth,

Or such a song as Sappho sung

When on her breast her Phaon hung.

I'd sing to thee of anxious days

Though anxious, yet intensely dear,

And tune my lip to tender lays,

As incense for thy thirsty ear-
Lays such as lovers faintly sing
By moonlight, to Eolia's string.

I'd sing to thee of lovesome nights,
When urchin Cupid reigns supreme,
And, with his playful pinion, writes

Dear woman's sweetly-pleasing dream—
Though woman's gentle soul, I wis,
Waking or sleeping, dreams of bliss.

I'd sing to thee in glowing rhyme,
As wildly throb'd my fond guitar,
And with its plaintive, silvery chime,
I'd mingle tales of love and war-

The while my blue and tearful eye
Told thee my heart's idolatry.

I'd sing to thee, in twilight shade,
Of Hero and Leander's truth,
And thou should be my Sestos maid,
And I, thine own Abydos youth-

And much, O deeply much, I err,

If thou wert not more bless'd than her.

I'd sing of all the lover-twain,

That bloom in story and in song,