Classic Poem

'tis even—on the pleasant banks of Rhine
The thrush is singing and the dove is cooing;
A Youth and Maiden on the turf recline
Alone—and he is wooing.

Yet woos in vain, for to the voice of love
No kindly sympathy the Maid discovers,
Though round them both, and in the air above.
The tender spirit hovers.

Untouch'd by lovely Nature and her laws,
The more he pleads, more coyly she represses;
Her lips denies, and now her hand withdraws,
Rejecting his addresses.

Fair is she as the dreams young poets weave,
Bright eyes and dainty lips and tresses curly,
In outward loveliness a child of Eve,
But cold as nymph of Lurley.

The more Love tries her pity to engross,
The more she chills him with a strange behaviour;
Now tells her beads, now gazes on the Cross
And image of the Saviour.

Forth goes the lover with a farewell moan,
As from the presence of a thing unhuman;—
Oh, what unholy spell hath turn'd to stone
The young warm heart of woman!


'Tis midnight—and the moonbeam, cold and wan,
On bower and river quietly is sleeping,
And o'er the corse of a self-murder'd man
The Maiden fair is weeping.

In vain she looks into his glassy eyes,
No pressure answers to her hands so pressing;
In her fond arms impassively he lies,
Clay-cold to her caressing.

Despairing, stunn'd, by her eternal loss,
She flies to succour that may best beseem her
But, lo! a frowning figure veils the Cross
And hides the blest Redeemer!

With stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll,
Wherein she reads, in melancholy letters,
The cruel, fatal pact that placed her soul
And her young heart in fetters.

“Wretch! sinner! renegade! to truth and God,
Thy holy faith for human love to barter!”
No more she hears, but on the bloody sod
Sinks, Bigotry's last martyr!

And side by side the hapless Lovers lie;
Tell me, harsh Priest! by yonder tragic token,
What part hath God in such a bond, whereby
Or hearts or vows are broken?