CHAPTER XVIII.
"Spirit of Love! soon thy rose-plumes wear
The weight and the sully of canker and care;
Falsehood is round thee—Hope leads thee on,
Till every hue from thy pinion is gone;
But one bright moment is all thine own,
The one ere thy visible presence is known.
When, like the wind of the south, thy power,
Sunning the heavens, sweetening the flower,
Is felt, but not seen, thou art soft and calm
As the sleep of a child—the dewfall of balm.
Fear has not darkened thee—Hope has made
The blossom expand, it but opens to fade.
Nothing is known of those wearing fears
Which will shadow the light of thy after-years.
Then thou art bliss:—but once throw by
The veil which shrouds thy divinity,
Stand confessed, and thy quiet is fled;
Wild flashes of rapture may come instead,
But pain will be with them. What may restore
The gentle happiness known before?"
The Improvisatrice.
There was a considerable change in the tone of Emily's epistles. Pleasures were not con-
