Alas! without him what have I? Grief bows my fame and dims my eye; For others, day and joy and light, For me, all darkness--always night! "What gloom spreads round where he is not: How cold, how lonely, he away! But in his presence all forgot, I never think of sun or day. What has the day? a sky of blue-- His eyes are of a softer hue, That light a heaven of hope and love. Pure as the skies that glow above. But skies, earth, blindness, tears, and pain, Are all forgot, unfelt, unknown, When he is by my side again, And holds my hand within his own!" When the unfortunate girl finds that her lover is untrue, despair takes possession of her mind; she causes herself to be conducted to the church, where the ceremony of the marriage is taking place; and at the moment when Baptiste pronounces the words which seal his fate with that of her rival, Angela, she rushes forward, and draws a knife to stab herself; but at the instant she falls dead at his feet, before her hand has accomplished the fatal blow. The poet here congratulates his heroine on having died _without crime_, her _intention_ going for nothing, and the angels bearing her soul to heaven as immaculate. There is little in the plot of this story--its beauty lies in the grace, and ease, and simplicity of the language, and the pathos of the situations. The same may be said of the ballad of "Françouneto," the latest work of the author, which is just now making a great sensation in France. The close of both these stories is somewhat weak and hurried, and both fail in effect, except when Jasmin reads them himself,--then there appears nothing to be desired. Françonnette is a village beauty and coquette, promised to Marcel, a young soldier, but attached to Pascal, a peasant, whose poverty and pride prevent his declaring the passion he feels for the volatile but tender maiden, who "Long had fired each youth with love, Each maiden with despair;" but, unlike the Emma of the English ballad, Françonnette is too conscious of being fair, and torments her admirers to death. She becomes, at length, the object of suspicion and hatred to her fellows, in consequence of a rumour circulated by her disappointed lover, Marcel, that her Huguenot father had sold her to the evil one, and that misfortune awaited whoever should love or marry her. Some fearful scenes ensue, in which the poet exhibits great power. The quarrel of the rivals is managed with effect; and the rising of the peasantry against the supposed bewitched beauty; the discovery of Pascal's love, and the consequent revolution the knowledge effects in the mind of the deserted girl; his tender devotion, her danger, and Marcel's subsequent remorse, are admirably told; and, on the whole, the story of Françonnette must be acknowledged as a great advance upon the "Aveugle;" and its superiority promises greater things yet from the poet of Agen. "FRANÇONNETTE'S MUSINGS.