Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845

Pledge of departed bliss,
Once gentlest, holiest token!
Art thou more faithful than thy mistress is,
That ever I must wear thee,
And on my bosom bear thee,
Although the bond that knit her soul with mine is broken?
Why shouldest thou prove stronger?
Short are the days of love, and wouldst thou make them longer?

Lili! in vain I shun thee!
Thy spell is still upon me.
In vain I wander through the distant forests strange,
In vain I roam at will
By foreign glade and hill,
For, ah! where'er I range,
Beside my heart, the heart of Lili nestles still!

Like a bird that breaks its twine,
Is this poor heart of mine:
It fain into the summer bowers would fly,
And yet it cannot be
Again so wholly free;
For always it must bear
The token which is there,
To mark it as a thrall of past captivity.

Here, again, is Romeo before his escape. Poor Juliet! may we hope that she still has, and may long possess, the power

"To lure this tassel-gentle back again."

Death, indeed, were a gentler fate than desertion. Truth to say, Goethe would have made but a sorry Romeo, for he wanted the great and leading virtue of constancy; and yet who can tell what Romeo might have become, after six months' exile in Mantua? Juliet, we know, had taken the place of Rosaline. Might not some fairer and newer star have arisen to eclipse the image of the other? We will not credit the heresy. Far better that the curtain should fall upon the dying lovers, before one shadow of doubt or suspicion of infidelity has arisen to perplex the clear bright mirror of their souls!

Welcome and Departure

To horse! — away o'er hill and steep!
Into the saddle blithe I sprung;
The eve was cradling earth to sleep,
And night upon the mountains hung.
With robes of mist around him set,
The oak like some huge giant stood,
While, with its hundred eyes of jet,
Peer'd darkness from the tangled wood.

Amidst a bank of clouds, the moon
A sad and troubled glimmer shed;
The wind its chilly wings unclosed,
And whistled wildly round my head.
Night framed a thousand phantoms dire,
Yet did I never droop nor start;
Within my veins what living fire!
What quenchless glow within my heart!

We met; and from thy glance a tide
Of stifling joy flow'd into me:
My heart was wholly by thy side,
My every breath was breathed for thee.
A blush was there, as if thy cheek
The gentlest hues of spring had caught,
And smiles so kind for me! — Great powers!
I hoped, yet I deserved them not!

But morning came to end my bliss;
A long, a sad farewell we took.
What joy — what rapture in thy kiss,
What depth of anguish in thy look!
I left thee, dear! but after me
Thine eyes through tears look'd from above;
Yet to be loved — what ecstacy!
What ecstacy, ye gods, to love!

Here are three small cabinet pictures of exquisite finish. We have laboured hard to do justice to them, for the smallest gems are the most difficult to copy; yet after all we have some doubts of our success.

Evening

Peace breathes along the shade
Of every hill,
The tree-tops of the glade
Are hush'd and still;
All woodland murmurs cease,
The birds to rest within the brake are gone.
Be patient, weary heart — anon,
Thou, too, shalt be at peace!

A Calm at Sea

Lies a calm along the deep,
Like a mirror sleeps the ocean,
And the anxious steersman sees
Round him neither stir nor motion.

Not a breath of wind is stirring,
Dread the hush as of the grave —
In the weary waste of waters
Not the lifting of a wave.

The Breeze

The mists they are scatter'd,
The blue sky looks brightly,