"Ere night is over, "Whether thy love loves thee or no, "Whether thy love loves thee." "See, up the dark tree going, "With blossoms round me blowing, "From thence, oh Father, "This leaf I gather, "Fairest that there is growing. 66 Say, by what sign I now shall know "If in this leaf lie bliss or woe; "And thus discover, "Ere night is over, "Whether my love loves me or no, "Fly to yon fount that's welling, "That leaf, oh Daughter, "And mark the tale 'tis telling;1 Forth flew the nymph, delighted, But, scarce a minute When, lo, its bloom was blighted! Fountain of Castalia, plucking a bay-leaf and dipping it into the sacred water. I A HUNTER Once in that grove reclin'd But, hark, what sounds from the thicket rise! 46 While Echo sighs forth" Hilliho!" Alas, 'twas not the white-horn'd doe ; While Echo murmur'd, "I die, I die!" A WOUNDED Chieftain, lying "Oh! bear, thou foaming tide, "This gift to my lady-bride." "Twas then, in life's last quiver, He flung the scarf he wore Into the foaming river, Which, ah too quickly, bore But, field, alas, ill-fated! The lady saw, instead Of the bark whose speed she waited, Her hero's scarf, all red With the drops his heart had shed. "TWAS midnight dark, Swift o'er the waters bore him, Shoot o'er the wave before him. "She comes from the Indian shore, "And to-night shall be our prize, "With her freight of golden ore. "Sail on! sail on!" When morning shone He saw the gold still clearer; The waves he pass'd, That boat seem'd never the nearer. Bright daylight came, And still the same Thus on, and on, THE STRANGER. COME list, while I tell of the heart-wounded Stranger Who sleeps her last slumber in this haunted THESE verses were written for a Benefit at the Dublin Theatre, and were spoken by Miss Smith, with a degree of success, which they owed solely to her admirable manner of reciting them. I wrote them in haste; and it very rarely happens that poctry, which has cost but little labour to the writer, is productive of any great pleasure to the reader. Under this impression, I certainly should not have published them if they had not found their way into some of the newspapers, with such an addition of errors to their own original stock, that I thought it but fair to limit their responsibility to those faults alone which really belong to them. With respect to the title which I have invented for this Poem, I feel even more than the scruples of the Emperor Tiberius, when he humbly asked pardon of the Roman Senate for using "the outlandish term, monopoly." But the truth is, having written the Poem with the sole view of serving a Benefit, I thought that an unintelligible word of this kind would not be without its attraction for the multitude, with whom, "If 'tis not sense, at least 'tis Greek." To some of my readers, however, it may not be superfluous to say, that by "Melologue," I mean that mixture of recitation and music, which is frequently adopted in the performance of Collins's Ode on the Passions, and of which the most striking example I can remember is the prophetic speech of Joad in the Athalie of Racine. T.M. MELOLOGUE. A SHORT STRAIN OF MUSIC FROM THE ORCHESTRA. THERE breathes a language, known and felt From those meridian plains, Where oft, of old, on some high tow'r, The soft Peruvian pour'd his midnight strains, And call'd his distant love with such sweet pow'r, That, when she heard the lonely lay, Not worlds could keep her from his arms away. Of vernal Phœbus burn'd upon his brow; 1 "A certain Spaniard, one night late, met an Indian woman in the streets of Cozco, and would have taken her to his home, but s cried out, For God's sake, Sir, let me go; for that pipe, which you hear in yonder tower, calls me with great passion, and I cannot refuse the summons; for love constrains me to go, that I may be his wife, and he my husband.'" Garcilasso de la Vega, in Sir Faul Rycaut's translation. |