But to see her was to love her,
Love but her, and love forever.
Had we never loved sae kindly,
Had we never loved sae blindly,
Never met or never parted,
We had ne'er been broken-hearted.
Fare thee weel, thou first and fairest! Fare thee weel, thou best and dearest ! Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
By day or night, in weal or woe,
That heart, no longer free,
Must bear the love it cannot show,
And silent, ache for thee.
MAID OF ATHENS, ERE WE PART. Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.*
MAID of Athens, ere we part,
Peace, enjoyment, love, and pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel, alas, forever!
Give, O, give me back my heart !
Or, since that has left my breast,
Deep in heart-wrung tears I'll pledge thee Warring sighs and groans I'll wage thee.
Hear my vow before I go,
Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.
By those tresses unconfined,
Wooed by each gean wind;
By those lids whose jetty fringe
Kiss thy soft cheeks' blooming tinge;
By those wild eyes like the roe,
Ζωη μου σάς ἀγαπῶ.
By that lip I long to taste;
By that zone-encircled waist
By all the token-flowers that tell
What words can never speak so well;
By love's alternate joy and woe,
Ζώη μοῦ σάς ἀγαπῶ.
THE kiss, dear maid! thy lip has left
Shall never part from mine,
Till happier hours restore the gift
Untainted back to thine.
Thy parting glance, which fondly beams, An equal love may see :
The tear that from thine eyelid streams Can weep no change in me.
I ask no pledge to make me blest
In gazing when alone ;
Nor one memorial for a breast
Whose thoughts are all thine own.
Nor need I write to tell the tale
My pen were doubly weak:
O, what can idle words avail,
Unless the heart could speak?
THE HEATH THIS NIGHT MUST BE MY BED.
SONG OF THE YOUNG HIGHLANDER, SUMMONED FROM THE
SIDE OF HIS BRIDE BY THE "FIERY CROSS" OF ROD.
ERICK DHU.
THE heath this night must be my bed,
The bracken curtain for my head,
My lullaby the warder's tread,
Far, far from love and thee, Mary;
To-morrow eve, more stilly laid,
My couch may be my bloody plaid,
My vesper song, thy wail, sweet maid!
It will not waken me, Mary!
I may not, dare not, fancy now
The grief that clouds thy lovely brow,
I dare not think upon thy vow,
And all it promised me, Mary.
* Zoë mou, sas agapo, - My life, I love thee.
Thy heart beats through thy rosy limbs,
So gladly doth it stir;
Thine eye in drops of gladness swims.
I have bathed thee with the pleasant myrrh;
Thy locks are dripping balm ;
Thou shalt not wander hence to-night,
I'll stay thee with my kisses.
To-night the roaring brine
Will rend thy golden tresses;
The ocean with the morrow light
Will be both blue and calm;
Alas! you now must start;
"But give the cock a blow
Who did begin our woe!"
From the Chinese, by WILLIAM R. ALGER.
THE PARTING OF ROMEO AND JULIET.
JULIET. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near
day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate-tree :
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.
ROMEO. It was the lark, the herald of the
No nightingale: look, love, what envious streaks
Do lace the severing clouds in yonder east:
Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain-tops.
I must be gone and live, or stay and die.
JULIET. Yon light is not daylight, I know
it, I :
And the billow will embrace thee with a kiss as It is some meteor, that the sun exhales,
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To be to thee this night a torch-bearer,
And light thee on thy way to Mantua:
Therefore stay yet,-- thou need'st not to be gone.
ROMEO. Let me be ta'en, let me be put to
death;
I am content, so thou wilt have it so.
I'll say, yon gray is not the morning's eye,
'T is but the pale reflex of Cynthia's brow ;
Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat
The vaulty heaven so high above our heads :
I have more care to stay than will to go;
Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.—
How is 't, my soul? let 's talk, it is not day.
JULIET. It is, it is; hie hence, be gone, away!
It is the lark that sings so out of tune,
Straining harsh discords, and unpleasing sharps.
Some say, the lark makes sweet division;
This doth not so, for she divideth us :
Some say, the lark and loathed toad change
O, now I would they had changed voices too!
Since arm from arm that voice doth us affray,
Hunting thee hence, with hunts-up to the day.
O, now be gone; more light and light it grows.
ROMEO. More light and light, more dark
and dark our woes.
JULIET. Then, window, let day in, and let
life out.
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