Thine eyes were filled with softened light, But welcomes now I read, As to my heart, by love's fond sight. I gently drew thy head; And oh, so eloquent were they-- So full of earnest truth,-- I knew what fain thy heart would say, The promise of thy youth. I knew that thou hadst faithful been To vows of long ago: That speeding time, and changing scene, No change in thee could show, That absence had but bound thy love More firmly to its choice-- It needed not one word to prove, One sound of thy loved voice. Yes, silent was that long embrace, Though tears flowed fast and free. As gazing down in that dear face, I read thy love for me; And thought of all the lonely hours When I had wildly yearned To press thee thus unto my heart, And feel my kiss returned. Those midnight hours! by sea and land! How heavily they sped! Sometimes upon a surf-beat strand My weary feet would tread, And when the stars looked calmly down From cloudless foreign skies-- Their soft light seemed a radiance thrown From these pure, earnest eyes. 'Twas but a dream! the light breeze swept Soft touches o'er my brow; The spray's cold kiss my lips had met, Oh, still afar art thou! 'Twas but a dream! and yet I heard Thy murmured--"_Art_ thou come!"-- Then woke, to feel my spirit stirred With these dear "sounds from home." SCANDALOUS DANCES. BROUGHT FROM FRENCH CASINOS TO AMERICAN PARLORS. We have constantly reflected in our "good society" and "fashionable world" every baseness and vulgarity that is invented _outre mer_, particularly in Paris. One woman returns to smoke cigars, in a magnificent home erected by a lucky mechanic or shopkeeper, as if such an indecency had ever been tolerated among the well-born and well-bred people of the social metropolis. Others, copying from their probable associates abroad, introduce obscene dances, and other licentious amusements, which for a season have baffled the police of foreign cities, and boast of their superiority to "low prejudices." All the travelled readers of the _International_, except clerks, agents, _chevaliers d'industrie_, and fugitives from justice, know very well that in all the world there is a show at least of moral where there is real social elevation; that these abuses are not anywhere tolerated among families which have kept their carriages for three generations. But we proposed an introduction to a passage written from Paris to the most aristocratic of the London magazines:--