Sweet are the charms in thee we find,
Emblem of Hope's gay wing;
‘Tis thine to call past bloom to mind—
To promise future spring.—L.
A temporary absence afforded the muse a season to reflect on friendly criticism and dogmatic rules, till August furnished a passing jeu d‘esprit at its commencement, and the following germ of the future L. E. L. at its close:—
Is not this grove
A scene of pensive loveliness—the gleam
Of Dian's gentle ray falls on the trees,
And piercing through the gloom, seems like the smile
That pity gives to cheer the brow of grief:
The turf has caught a silvery hue of light
Broken by shadows, where the branching oak
Rears its dark shade, or where the aspen waves
Its trembling leaves. The breeze is murmuring by,
Fraught with sweet sighs of flowers and the song
Of sorrow, that the nightingale pours fourth,
Like the soft dirge of Love.
There is oft told
A melancholy record of this grove—
It was time once the haunt of young affection,
And now seems hallowed by the tender vows
That erst were breathed here.
Sad is the tale
That tells of blighted feelings, hopes destroyed;
But love is like the rose, so many ills
Assail it in the bud—the cankering blast,
The frost of winter, and the summer's storm,
All bow it down; rarely the blossom comes
To full maturity; but there is nought
Sinks with so chill a breath as Faithlessness,—
As she could tell, whose loveliness yet lives
In village legend. Often, at this hour
Of lonely beauty, would she list the tale
Of tenderness, and hearken to the vows
Of one more dear than life unto her soul!
He twined him round a heart which beat with all
The deep devotedness of early love—
Then left her, careless of the passion which
He had awakened into wretchedness:
