VII.

They sate them on a fallen column, where The wild acanthus clomb the shatter'd stone, Mocking the sculptured mimicry--which there Was graven on the pillar'd pomp o'erthrown,[D] Flowerless, if green, the herbage type-like decks Art that will flower not over Glory's wrecks.

"Ah, doth not Heaven seem near us when alone? How air and moonbeam interchange delight! How like the homeward bird my soul hath flown Unto its rest!--O glorious is the night, Glorious with stars, and starry thoughts, and Thee!" Her sweet voice paused; then from the swelling heart Sigh'd--"Joy to meet, but O despair to part!"

"And wherefore part? Out of all time to me Thou cam'st emerging from the depth of dreams, As rose the Venus from her native sea; And at thy coming, Light with all his beams Illumed Creation's golden Jubilee. What, if my life be wrench'd from youth too soon To find in duty Manhood's troubled doom,-- Lo, where yon star clings ever through the gloom Fast by the labouring melancholy moon, So shine, unsever'd from thy pilgrim's side, And gift his soul with an immortal bride." Trembling she heard--no answer but a sigh-- Sighing, still trembled; tenderly he raised Her downcast cheek, and sought the wish'd-for eye. On the long lashes hung slow-gathering tears: And that subdued, despondent thought which wears Woe, as a Nun the fatal funeral veil, Silent and self-consuming--cast its gloom O'er the sad face yet sadder for its bloom. He gazed, and felt within him, as he gazed, His heart beneath the dire foreboding quail, Ev'n as the gifted melancholy seer Knows by his shudder when a grief is near. "Thou answerest not--yet my soul trusts in thee; Albeit--as if for child of earth too fair Thy love vouchsafed, thy life conceal'd from me, Nymph-like, thou comest out of starry air,-- And I, content the Beautiful to see, Presumed till now no hardier human prayer. But now, the spell the hour appointed breaks, Now in these lips a power that thralls me speaks; I seek mine England, canst thou leave thy Rome? Start not--but let this hand still rest in thine; Canst thou not say 'thy home shall be my home,' Canst thou not say 'thy People shall be mine?'"