V.

THE STRANGER SUITOR.

There came to Eva's maiden home A Stranger from a sunnier clime; The lore that Hellas taught to Rome, The wealth that Wisdom works from Time, Which ever, in its ebb and flow, Heaves to the seeker on the shore The waifs of glorious wrecks below, The argosies of yore;-- Each gem that in that dark profound The Past,--the Student's soul can find; Shone from his thought, and sparkled round The Enchanted Palace of the Mind. In man's best years, his form was fair, Broad brow with hyacinth locks of hair; A port, though stately, not severe; An eye that could the heart control; A voice whose music to the ear, Became a memory to the soul. It seem'd as Nature's hand had done Her most to mould her kingly son; But oft beneath the sunlit Nile The grim destroyer waits its prey, And dark, below that fatal smile, The lurking demon lay.

How trustful in the leafy June, She roved with him the lonely vale; How trustful by the tender moon, She blushed to hear a tenderer tale. O happy Earth! the dawn revives, Day after day, each drooping flower-- Time to the heart _once_ only gives The joyous Morning Hour. "To him--oh, wilt thou pledge thy youth, For whom the world's false bloom is o'er? My heart shall haven in thy truth, And tempt the faithless wave no more. In my far land, a sun more bright Sheds rose-hues o'er a tideless sea; But cold the wave, and dull the light, Without the sunshine found in thee. Say, wilt thou come, the Stranger's bride, To that bright land and tideless sea? There is no sun but by thy side-- My life's whole sunshine smiles in thee!"

Her hand lay trembling on his arm, Averted glow'd the happy face; A softer hue, a mightier charm, Grew mellowing o'er the hour--the place; Along the breathing woodlands moved A PRESENCE dream-like and divine-- How sweet to love and be beloved, To lean upon a heart that's thine! Silence was o'er the earth and sky-- By silence Love is answer'd best-- _Her_ answer was the downcast eye, The rose-cheek pillow'd on his breast. What rustles through the moonlit brake? What sudden spectre meets their gaze? What face, the hues of life forsake, Gleams ghost-like in the ghostly rays? You might have heard his heart that beat, So heaving rose its heavy swell-- _No more the Idiot_--at her feet, The Dark One, roused to reason, fell. Loosed the last link that thrall'd the thought, The lightning broke upon the blind-- The jealous love the cure had wrought, The Heart in waking woke the Mind.