Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne:

LEGL'NXDS AND LYliiC,.
Betrayed the festering consciousniess
within:
So gracious seemed he. Da)lphiles' lopes
begin
To wake, and whisper folnd, sweet. fool ish words
Close to her heart, that flutters like a
bird's
Wooed in the spring-daw-n: yet, alas!
alas!
For joy that dies, and dreamy hopes that
pass
To nothingness! In'midst of this, her
trust,
Came a swift blow wh-ich smote her to
the dust;
News that her ingrate love had basely
fled,
Whither none knew. Scarce had this
shaft been sped
From fate's unerring bow, than swift
again
Hurtled a second steeped in poisoned
pain;
For now the whole dark truth caime
sternly out:
Leagued with her bitterest foes, a savage
rout
Of mountain-robbers o'er the frontier
land,
He unto whomi she proffered heart and
hand,
Kingdom and crown, had bared his
treacherous blade,
And of the great and just gods unafraid,
Upreared his standard'neath the blood red star,
And raised once more the incarnate
curse of war!
So from that day all gladness left the
heart
Of broken Daphles; she would muse
apart
From court and friends, her once blithe
footsteps slow,
Hier once proud head bowed down, and
such wi ld wo e
Crouched in the clouded depths of lmoiurn ful eyes
wNsitlh sigl ls
Deep almost as her own. At last, s he
wrote
(For still F h r soul lhaile(l, watery ani(l re ]note.
Oie' b)eaimi of lp(e) a missive tender sweet,
Clcarlsedo wa!F itll such pathos, to her d eli cate feet
It might have lured a s pirit, nigh to
death,
And straight imbued wit h waro m coutpas sionate brieatlh
A heart as cold as spires of Arctic
ice!
Ah, futile hope! Ah, fond and vain de vice!
Not all the pl eading elo quence of wrong,
Veiling its wounds, and goldect-soft as
song
Trilled by the brown Sicilian niightin gales,
In dusky nooks of melancholy vales,
Could melt the granite will of Doracles.
Each tender line she sent him did but
tease
And sting his obdurate temper into
hate,
As if the deep harmonious terms that
wait
On truest love, were wasp-like, poisoned
things:
Her timorous hints, her sweet imagin ings,
Far thoughts, and dreams evanishing,
but high,
Filled with the maiden dews of sanctity,
He crushed, as one might crush in mad dened hours
The fairest of the sisterhood of flowers;
No further answer made he than could
be
Couched in brief terms of cold discourt esy,
Holding all love —the noblest love on
earth Of lesser moment than an insect's birth,
94
That few could i iark lier iiiisery bitt