And now I am at home alone. 'Tis night. All still within the house, no fire, no light. Let me, too, sleep. Alas! no sleep is there! Pray then. My spirit will not hear my prayer. My ear is still with dancing measures ringing, Echoes which memory back to sense is bringing; I close my eyes: before my inward glance Still swims the _fete_, still whirls the giddy dance; The graceful phantoms of the vanished ball Come flitting by in beauty each and all; A glance still haunts my couch; a soft hand seems To press my hand, that trembles in my dreams, Fair tresses in the dance's flight brought nigh, Just touch my cheek, and like the wind flow by, I see from maiden brows the roses falling, I hear beloved lips my name recalling-- Anne, Lucy, Blanche!--Where am I--What is this? What must love be, when even love's dream is bliss! There is an indefinable French difference, but, that apart, the foregoing is somewhat like Goldsmith in his "Deserted Village." Or is it the resemblance of meter that produces the impression? "Jocelyn," though certainly intended by the author to be pure, wavers at points on the edge of the exceptionably ambiguous. The following spring song, however, put by the poet into the mouth of his Laurence, is an inspiration as innocent as it is sweet: See, in her nest, the nightingale's mute mate, Hatching her young, her patient vigil hold. See how with love her fostering wings dilate, As if to screen her nurslings from the cold. Her neck alone, in restlessness upraised, O'ertops the nest in which her brood reposes, And her bright eye, with weary watching glazed, Closing to sleep, with every sound uncloses. Care for her callow young consumes her rest, My very voice her downy bosom shakes, And her heart pants beneath its plumy vest, And the nest trembles with each breath she takes. What spell enchains her to this gentle care? Her mate's sweet melody the groves among, Who, from some branching oak, high poised in air Sends down the flowing river of his song. Hark! dost thou hear him, drop by drop distilling The sighs that sweetest after transport be, Then suddenly the vault above us filling With foaming cataracts of harmony? What spell enchains him in his turn--what makes His very being thus in languor melt-- But that his voice a living echo wakes, His lay within one loving heart is felt! And, ravished by the note, his mate still holds Her watch attentive through the weary time; The season comes, the bursting shell unfolds, And life is music all, and love, and prime.