Like warriors of the knightly times of old, All sheathed in armor rough with fretted gold, So seem the trees round Elva’s mansion white, So glance their wet leaves in the silver light. Still Gilbert watches—still his eyelids keep At bay the approaches of deceitful sleep; The sun was sinking when his watch begun, Now far beneath him rolls the unwearied sun; The moon, whose glory woke a fainter day, When on the hill-tops died the gold away, Now from mid-heaven, with face serene, looks down On lake and stream and Elva’s forest brown. He leaned against a tree, whose trunk around With hoary moss and ivy green was bound, His flashing eyes were turned upon a scroll Whose pictured words drew echoes from his soul: As the Æolian harp, by night winds stirred, By turns is silent, or by snatches heard, So wildly sweet, in fitful fragments rung The syllables unconscious from his tongue. THE LETTER. Sweet land of shadows—dear, delightful shore— Oh could I seek thee to return no more! What dreams of joy each misty valley fills, What scented blossoms fringe the sparkling rills, What angel visions float through rainbow skies, Where rich and warm a sunless glory lies! There, ’mid the blossoms, love lies stretched along, And fills the air with passion and with song, And dancing waves below, and winds above, Seem warm with kisses from the lips we love. Ah! Gilbert, shall our spirits haunt no more Those bowers of love on fancy’s airy shore? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Fierce as the waves of ocean lashed to strife, Wild as the winds that wake them into life, Through my sore heart the crimson billows roll, And rush the thoughts tumultuous o’er my soul, When to my memory’s eye returns that day They tore thee bleeding from my heart away. O cursed, yet blessed, all wild with joy and pain, How cling those moments to my tortured brain— That last embrace my bosom answers still, Still to that kiss my lips responsive thrill. Again mine arms are wildly round thee flung— I drink each accent falling from thy tongue— Again—again—O God!—the steel gleams bright— As speeds the deadly blow before my sight, I see the warm blood gushing from thy breast— But grim despair and darkness hold the rest. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .