Oh! what can sanctify the joys of home,

Like Hope's gay glance from Ocean's troubled

foam?

XIX.

The lights are high on beacon and from bower,
And midst them Conrad seeks Medora's tower:
He looks in vain 'tis strange
and all re-

mark,

Amid so many, hers alone is dark.

'Tis strange of

--

yore

1740

its welcome never failed,

Nor now, perchance, extinguished, only veiled.
With the first boat descends he for the shore,
And looks impatient on the lingering oar.
Oh! for a wing beyond the falcon's flight,
To bear him like an arrow to that height!
With the first pause the resting rowers gave,
He waits not looks not leaps into the wave,

Strifes through the surge, bestrides the beach,

and high

Ascends the path familiar to his eye.

1750

He reached his turret door-he paused-no sound Broke from within; and all was night around. He knocked, and loudly footstep nor reply

Announced that any heard or deemed him nigh; He knocked- but faintly - for his trembling hand Refused to aid his heavy heart's demand.

The portal opens

'tis a well known face

But not the form he panted to embrace.

Its lips are silent

--

twice his own essayed, 1760

And failed to frame the question they delayed; He snatched the lamp - its light will answer allIt quits his grasp, expiring in the fall.

He would not wait for that reviving ray

As soon could he have lingered there for day;
But, glimmering through the dusky corridore,
Another chequers o'er the shadowed floar;
His steps the chamber gain

All that his heart believed not

his eyes behold

yet foretold!

And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed - how long we gaze despite of pain,
And know, but dare not own, we gaze in vain!
In life itself she was so still and fair,
That death with gentler aspect withered there;
And the cold flowers 16 her colder hand contained,

In that last grasp as tenderly were strained
As if she scarcely felt, but feigned a sleep,
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:

The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow, 1780

And veiled thought shrinks from all that lurked

below

Oh! o'er the eye death most exerts his might,
And hurls the spirit from her throne of light!
Sinks those blue orbs in that long last eclipse,
But sparcs, as yet, the charm around her lips—
Yet, yet they seem as they forbore to smile,
And wished repose-but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long
but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind, 1790
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind;
and the pale pure cheek, became the

These

fair

By the first glance on that still marble brow.

It was enough she died

what recked it how?

The love of youth, the hope of better years,

The source of softest wishes, tenderest fears,
The only living thing he could not hate,

Was reft at once and he deserved his fate, 1800 But did not feel it less; the good explore,

For peace, those realms where guilt can never soar:
The proud — the wayward—who have fixed below
Their joy
and find this earth enough for woe,
Lose in that one their all-perchance a mite
But who in patience parts with all delight?
Full many a stoic eye and aspect stern
Mask hearts where grief hath little left to learn;
And many a withering thought lies hid, not lost,
In smiles that least befit who wear them most. 1810

XXII.

By those, that deepest feel, is ill exprest
The indistinctness of the suffering breast;
Where thousand thoughts begin to end in one,
Which seeks from all the refuge found in none;
No words suffice the secret soul to show,
For Truth denies all eloquence to Woe.
On Conrad's stricken soul exhaustion prest,
And stupor almost lulled it into rest;

So feeble now his mother's softness crept

To those wild eyes, which like an infant's wept: 1820

VOL. III.

Ꮐ

It was

the very weakness of his brain,

Which thus confessed without relieving pain. None saw his trickling tears - perchance, if seen,

That useless flood of grief had never been:

Nor long they flowed

he dried them to depart,

brokenness of heart:

but Conrad's day is dim;

ne'er to pass from him.

There is no darkness like the cloud of mind,

On Grief's vain eye- the blindest of the blind! 1830

Which may not dare not see

To blackest shade - nor will endure a guide!

XXIII.

His heart was formed for softness

wrong;

warped to

Betrayed too early, and beguiled too long;

Each feeling pure as falls the dropping dew
Within the grot; like that had hardened too;
Less clear, perchance, its earthly trials passed,
But sunk, and chilled, and petrified at last.
Yet tempests wear, and lightning cleaves the

rock;

If such his heart, so shattered it the shock. 1840 There grew one flower beneath its rugged brow,