"I commend your inexpressible earthly beauty, dear Stephania, and your still brighter loveliness of soul, to God's angel, who has never left you. Farewell! You will see me when I am worthy of you--if it be necessary that it should be first in heaven, made so by forgiveness there.
_Cell of St. Eusebius, Vallambrosa--day-breaking_."
Dear transient spirit of the fields, Thou com'st, without distrust, To fan the sunshine of our streets Among the noise and dust.
Thou leadest in thy wavering flight My footsteps unaware, Until I seem to walk the vales And breathe thy native air.
And thou hast fed upon the flowers, And drained their honied springs, Till every tender hue they wore Is blooming on thy wings.
I bless the fresh and flowery light Thou bringest to the town, But tremble lest the hot turmoil Have power to weigh thee down;
For thou art like the poet's song, Arrayed in holiest dyes, Though it hath drained the honied wells Of flowers of Paradise;
Though it hath brought celestial hues To light the ways of life, The dust shall weigh its pinions down Amid the noisy strife.
And yet, perchance, some kindred soul Shall see its glory shine, And feel its wings within his heart As bright as I do thine.
BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF "THE ROMAN TRAITOR," "MARMADUKE WYVIL," ETC.
A lovely summer's evening in the year 168-, was drawing toward its close, when many a gay and brilliant cavalcade of both sexes, many of the huge gilded coaches of that day, and many a train of liveried attendants, winding through the green lane, as they arrived, some in this direction from Eton, some in that, across Datchet-mead, from Windsor, and its royal castle, came thronging toward Ditton-in-the-Dale.
Lights were beginning to twinkle, as the shadows fell thick among the arcades of the trim gardens, and the wilder forest-walks which extended their circuitous course for many a mile along the stately hall of the Fitz-Henries; loud bursts of festive or of martial music came pealing down the wind, mixed with the hum of a gay and happy concourse, causing the nightingales to hold their peace, not in despair of rivaling the melody, but that the mirth jarred unpleasantly on the souls of the melancholy birds.
The gates of Ditton-in-the-Dale were flung wide open, for it was gala night, and never had the old hall put on a gayer or more sumptuous show than it had donned that evening.