ECHOES.

How sweet the answer Echo makes

To Music at night

When, roused by lute or horn, she wakes,

And far away o'er lawns and lakes

Goes answering light!

Yet Love hath echoes truer far

And far more sweet

Than e'er, beneath the moonlight's star,

Of horn or lute or soft guitar

The songs repeat.

'Tis when the sigh,-in youth sincere

And only then,

The sigh that 's breathed for one to hear—
Is by that one, that only Dear,

Breathed back again.

THOMAS MOCRE.

LOVE'S YOUNG DREAM.

66
FROM IRISH MELODIES."

O THE days are gone when beauty bright
My heart's chain wove!

When my dream of life, from morn till night,
Was love, still love!

New hope may bloom,

And days may come,

Of milder, calmer beam,

But there's nothing half so sweet in life

As love's young dream!

O, there's nothing half so sweet in life
As love's young dream!

Though the bard to purer fame may soar,
When wild youth's past;

Though he win the wise, who frowned before,
To smile at last;

He'll never meet
A joy so sweet

In all his noon of fame

As when first he sung to woman's ear
His soul-felt flame,

And at every close she blushed to hear
The one loved name!

O, that hallowed form is ne'er forgot,
Which first love traced;

Still it lingering haunts the greenest spot
On memory's waste!

'T was odor fled

As soon as shed;

'Twas morning's wingèd dream;

'T was a light that ne'er can shine again

On life's dull stream!

O, 't was a light that ne'er can shine again

On life's dull stream!

THOMAS MOORE.

VII.

LOVE'S POWER.

THE MIGHT OF ONE FAIR FACE.

THE might of one fair face sublimes my love,
For it hath weaned my heart from low desires;
Nor death I heed, nor purgatorial fires.
Thy beauty, antepast of joys above,

Instructs me in the bliss that saints approve;
For O, how good, how beautiful, must be
The God that made so good a thing as thee,
So fair an image of the heavenly Dove!
Forgive me if I cannot turn away

From those sweet eyes that are my earthly heaven,

For they are guiding stars, benignly given
To tempt my footsteps to the upward way;
And if I dwell too fondly in thy sight,
I live and love in God's peculiar light.

From the Italian of MICHAEL ANGELO.

Translation of J. E. TAYLOR.

329

MY TRUE-LOVE HATH MY HEART.

My true-love hath my heart, and I have his,

By just exchange one to the other given: I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,

There never was a better bargain driven: My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one;

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides: He loves my heart, for once it was his own; I cherish his because in me it bides: My true-love hath my heart, and I have his.

SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

WERE I AS BASE AS IS THE LOWLY PLAIN.

WERE I as base as is the lowly plain,

And you, my Love, as high as heaven above,
Yet should the thoughts of me your humble swain
Ascend to heaven, in honor of my Love.

Were I as high as heaven above the plain,
And you, my Love, as humble and as low
As are the deepest bottoms of the main,
Wheresoe'er you were, with you my love should
go.

Were you the earth, dear Love, and I the skies,
My love should shine on you like to the sun,

And look upon you with ten thousand eyes

Till heaven waxed blind, and till the world were

done.

Wheresoe'er I am, below, or else above you,

Wheresoe'er you are, my heart shall truly love

you.

JOSHUA SYLVESTER.

WHEN STARS ARE IN THE QUIET
SKIES.

WHEN stars are in the quiet skies,

Then most I pine for thee;

Bend on me then thy tender eyes,

As stars look on the sea!

For thoughts, like waves that glide by night,
Are stillest when they shine;
Mine earthly love lies hushed in light

Beneath the heaven of thine.

There is an hour when angels keep
Familiar watch o'er men,

When coarser souls are wrapped in sleep-
Sweet spirit, meet me then!
There is an hour when holy dreams
Through slumber fairest glide;
And in that mystic hour it seems
Thou shouldst be by my side.

My thoughts of thee too sacred are
For daylight's common beam: