Of sunny beauty, leaves and flowers:
And nestling birds to sing the hours!
Our home, beneath some chestnut's shade
But of the woven branches made:
Our vesper hymn, the low lone wail
The rose hears from the nightingale;
And waked at morning by the call
Of music from a waterfall.
But not alone in dreams like this,
Breathed in the very hope of bliss,
I loved: my love had been the same
In hush'd despair, in open shame.
I would have rather been a slave,
In tears, in bondage by his side,
Than shared in all, if wanting him,
This world had power to give beside!
My heart was wither'd—and my heart
Had ever been the world to me:
And love had been the first fond dream,
Whose life was in reality.
I had sprung from my solitude,
Like a young bird upon the wing,
To meet the arrow: so I met
My poison'd shaft of suffering.
And as that bird with drooping crest
And broken wing, will seek his nest,
But seek in vain: so vain I sought
My pleasant home of song and thought.
There was one spell upon my brain,
Upon my pencil, on my strain;
But one face to my colours came;
My chords replied to but one name—
Lorenzo!—all seem'd vow'd to thee,
To passion, and to misery!
That Mrs. Maclean could paint Sorrow as well as she could delineate Love we have plenty of proof. Sorrow seems indeed an essential part of her nature. Persons who knew her intimately
