Roused from the lulling spell with startled blush At such strange power in silence, to the hush The maid restored the music, while she sought Fresh banks for that sweet river--loving thought. "Tell me," she said, "if not too near the gloom Of some sad tale, the rash desire presume; What severs so the chords that should entwine With one warm bond our sister's heart and thine? Why does she love yet dread thee? what the grief That shrinks from utterance and disdains relief? Hast thou not been too stern?--nay, pardon! nay, Let thy words chide me,--not thy looks dismay!" "Not unto thee, beneath whose starry eye Each wild wave hushes, did my looks reply; They were the answer to mine own dark thought, Which back the grief, thy smile had banish'd, brought. "Well--to the secrets of my soul thy love Hath such sweet right, I lift the veil above Home's shattered gods, and show what wounds belong To writhing honour and revengeless wrong.-- "Rear'd in the desert, round its rugged child, All we call life, group'd, menacing and wild; But to man's soul there is an inner life; _There_, one soft vision smiled away the strife! A fairy shape, that seem'd afar to stand On the lost shores of Youth--the Fairy land; A voice that call'd me 'brother;'--years had fled Since my rough breast had pillow'd that sweet head, Yet still my heart throbb'd with the pressure; still Tears, such as mothers know, my eyes would fill; Prayers, such as fathers pray, my soul would breathe; The oak were sere but for that jasmine-wreath! At length, wealth came; my footsteps left the wild,-- Again we met:--to woman grown the child: How did we meet?--that heart to me was dead! The bird, far heard amidst the waste was fled! With earthlier fires that breast had learn'd to burn; And what yet left? but ashes in the urn: Woo'd and abandon'd! all of love, hope, soul Lavish'd--now lifeless!--well, were this the whole! But the good name--the virgin's pure renown-- Woman's white robe, and Honour's starry crown, Lost, lost, for ever!" O'er his visage past His trembling hand,--then, hurriedly and fast, As one who from the knife of torture swerves, Then spurns the pang, as pride the weakness nerves, Resumed--"As yet _that_ secret was withheld, All that I saw, was sorrow that repell'd,-- A dreary apathy, whose death-like chill Froze back my heart and left us sever'd still.