THE LOST LEADER. Until his very steps have left a trace By Bonnivard! May none those marks efface! LORD BYRON. J The Lost Leader. UST for a handful of silver he left us; Just for a ribbon to stick in his coat,— Found the one gift of which fortune bereft us, Lost all the others she lets us devote. They, with the gold to give, doled him out silver, How all our copper had gone for his service! Rags, were they purple, his heart had been proud! We that had loved him so, followed him, honored him, Lived in his mild and magnificent eye, Learned his great language, caught his clear accents, Burns, Shelley, were with us,-they watch from their graves! He alone breaks from the van and the freemen, He alone sinks to the rear and the slaves! We shall march prospering,-not through his presence; 5 113 Life's night begins; let him never come back to us! There would be doubt, hesitation, and pain; Forced praise on our part-the glimmer of twilight, Never glad, confident morning again! Best fight on well, for we taught him,-strike gallantly, Aim at our heart, ere we pierce through his own; Then let him receive the new knowledge and wait us, Pardoned in Heaven, the first by the throne! ROBERT BROWNING. Genevieve. LL thoughts, all passions, all delights, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame. Oft in my waking dreams do I The moonshine stealing o'er the scene, She leaned against the armed man, Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs that make her grieve. GENEVIEVE. I played a soft and doleful air; She listened with a flitting blush, I told her of the knight that wore I told her how he pined-and ah! She listened with a flitting blush, But when I told the cruel scorn That crazed that bold and lovely knight, That sometimes from the savage den, And sometimes from the darksome shade, And sometimes starting up at once In green and sunny glade, There came and looked him in the face An angel beautiful and bright; And that he knew it was a fiend, This miserable knight! 115 And that, unknowing what he did, And how she wept, and clasped his knees; The scorn that crazed his brain; And that she nursed him in a cave; His dying words-but when I reached All impulses of soul and sense And hopes, and fears that kindle hope, She wept with pity and delight-- Her bosom heaved; she stepped aside- A HEALTH. She half inclosed me with her arms; 'T was partly love, and partly fear, I calmed her fears, and she was calm, My bright and beauteous bride. SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE. 117 |