Thus he fulfilled the dearest trust That human-kind with Heaven can share; Thus could forget the tenderest ties That ruthless power could e'er ordain, Again to her the light is fair, Yea, more than light! She doth awake To days more bright than e'er the sun could make. Oh! the great joys of earth and air For that unfriended, homeless pair. Is in his dwelling, and her Heaven What, though the world's poor wealth be reft, Though fame-even fame he must forego, Nought grieveth he while love is left; Love singly makes him wholly blest, That only Heaven that mortals know. Brightens to him that rugged nest, Amid the oaken shades above, And theirs is the full life of youth and love; A bliss it deems the morrow cannot lose. Strange that so glad a dream should e'er have birth, In human hearts,-'mid mockeries of this Earth! * The joyous toil of the chase is o'er, And that hunter wends to his hidden home. On the highwood bent, he hears the roar Of the water that speeds in its path of foam; And welcome to him is that lulling sound, Though it never soothed his cradled-sleep, Though his birth-place was not in that mountain ground, Nor his youth had sported, from steep to steep, In that most dear and lonely wild, Where he hath grown a desert-child. Not half so winning to his eye Could even the first-loved valley be, Afar in fruitful Sicily, Where his first years went smiling by, As those rough scenes that passion's power Hath charmed in its most witching hour. Thereby, the far uplifted peaks, The ancient snows, the rocky side Of the rent mountain gaping wide, His eyes have there an Eden found, The rapture of most living rest, And never pilgrim reached the shrine He toiled through weary moons to gain, With such a sense of joy divine, So free an outbreak from all pain, As fills Arnaldo, while he sees That lustre through the opening trees, Which evening hath already made And tireless all their lays are blending, The music of that lonely spot, Than aught that won his earlier dreams In green Mazzara's olive groves, Blithe as the bird of wildest flight, .When first it soars in cloudless light, Is he, whose looks become more bright, He views that hut, in the evening beam, That wanderer came the breath of love? Lorenza, wilt thou not appear, Thy lover's darkening sight to cheer?- But his heart sinks like a weight of lead, As he rushes into that silent shed; Madly glance his eyes around, As he utters that name, and no answering sound Heals the benumbing agony That like an ice-blast harrows him Heart-deep at once. What doth he see? A scroll, but his straining sight grows dim, |