The sun was setting o'er the sea,
A beautiful and summer sun;
Crimson and bright, as if not night,
But rather day had just begun:
That lighted sky, that lighted sea,
They spoke of Love and Hope to me.

I thought how Love, I thought how Hope,
O'er the horizon of my heart
Had poured their light like yonder sun;
Like yon sun, only to depart:
Alas! that ever suns should set,
Or Hope grow cold, or Love forget!

Weep for the love that fate forbids;
Yet loves, unhoping, on,
Though every light that once illumed
Its early path be gone.

Weep for the love that must resign
The soul's enchanted dream,
And float, like some neglected bark,
Adown life's lonely stream!

Weep for the love that cannot change;
Like some unholy spell,
It hangs upon the life that loved
So vainly and so well.

Weep for the weary heart condemned
To one long, lonely sigh,
Whose lot has been in this cold world,
To dream, despair, and die!

Youth , love, and rank, and wealth — all these combined,
Can these be wretched? Mystery of the mind,
Whose happiness is in itself; but still
Has not that happiness at its own will.
She felt too wretched with the sudden fear —
Had she such lovely rival, and so near?
Ay, bitterest of the bitter this worst pain,
To know love's offering has been in vain;
Rejected, scorn'd, and trampled under foot,
Its bloom and leaves destroyed, but not its root.
" He loves me not! " — no other words nor sound
An echo in the lady's bosom found:

Fear not to trust her destiny with me:
I can remember, in my early youth,
Wandering amid our old ancestral woods,
I found an unfledged dove upon the ground,
I took the callow creature to my care,
And fain had given it to its nest again:
That could not be, and so I made its home
In my affection, and my constant care.
I made its cage of osier-boughs, and hung
A wreath oFearly leaves and woodland flowers:
I hung it in the sun; and, when the wind
Blew from the cold and bitter east, 'twas screen'd
With care that never knew forgetfulness.

THE LOVELY LASS AND THE MIRROR .

A NYMPH with ilka beauty grac'd,
Ae morning by her toilet plac'd,
Where the leal-hearted Looking-glass
With truths addrest the lovely Lass.
“To do ye justice, heavenly fair,
“Amaist in charms ye may compare
“With Venus' sell; but mind amaist,
“For tho' you 're happily possest
“Of ilka grace which claims respect,
“Yet I see faults you should correct;
“I own they only trifles are,
“Yet of importance to the fair:
“What signifies that patch o'er braid,

I SAY not, regret me; you will not regret;
You will try to forget me, you cannot forget;
We shall hear of each other, ah, misery to hear
Those names from another which once were so dear!

But deep words shall sting thee that breathe of the past,
And many things bring thee thoughts fated to last;
The fond hopes that centered in thee are all dead,
The iron has entered the soul where they fed.

Of the chain that once bound me, the memory is mine,
But my words are around thee, their power is on thine;
No hope, no repentance, my weakness is o'er,

I DO not ask to offer thee
A timid love like mine;
I lay it, as the rose is laid
On some immortal shrine.

I have no hope in loving thee,
I only ask to love;
I brood upon my silent heart,
As on its nest the dove.

But little have I been beloved,
Sad, silent, and alone:
And yet I feel, in loving thee,
The wide world is mine own.

Thine is the name I breathe to Heaven,
Thy face is on my sleep;
I only ask that love like this
May pray for thee and weep.

Is not the lark companion of the spring?
And should not Hope — that skylark of the heart —
Bear, with her sunny song, Youth company?
Still is its sweetest music poured for love;
And that is not for me; yet will I love,
And hope, though only for her praise and tears;
And they will make the laurel's cold bright leaves
Sweet as the tender myrtle.

He set the trumpet to his lips, and lo!
The clash of waves, the roar of winds that blow,
The strife and stress of Nature's warring things,
Rose like a storm-cloud, upon angry wings.

He set the reed-pipe to his lips, and lo!
The wreck of landscape took a rosy glow,
And Life, and Love, and gladness that Love brings
Laughed in the music, like a child that sings.

Master of each, Arch-Master! We that still
Wait in the verge and outskirt of the Hill
Look upward lonely — lonely to the height
Where thou has climbed, for ever, out of sight!

O you there weeping alone so bitterly,
What is it you weep for, paying bitterly
The price in tears and darkened sunless eyes?
Only your youth? — yet always late or soon
Age scatters dust for gold and, late or soon,
Darkens and then calms the desiring eyes.

But I am weeping my age which was so fair.
Nothing, not even death, was quite so fair
Mine was that wisdom in which the seraphs love,
And in my age agelessly I had been
Rose in the cherubs' rose-flame love — have been
A golden mirror for the sun of love!