PAULINE.
121
Was one brief meeting theirs, one wild farewell?
And died they heart to heart?—Oh! who can tell?
Freshly and cloudlessly the morning broke
On that sad palace, midst its pleasure-shades;
Its painted roofs had sunk—yet black with smoke
And lonely stood its marble colonnades:
But yester-eve their shafts with wreaths were bound—
Now lay the scene one shrivell'd scroll around!
And bore the ruins no recording trace
Of all that woman's heart had dared and done?
Yes! there were gems to mark its mortal place,
That forth from dust and ashes dimly shone!
Those had the mother on her gentle breast,
Worn round her child's fair image, there at rest.
F
