O'er the distant hills came Cromwell; Bessie sees him and her brow,
Full of hope and full of gladness, has no anxious traces now.
At his feet she tells her story, shows her hands all bruised and torn;
And her face so sweet and pleading, yet with sorrow pale and worn,
Touched his heart with sudden pity, lit his eye with misty light:
"Go, your lover lives," said Cromwell,
"Curfew shall not ring to-night!"
* * * * *
GERTRUDE OF WYOMING.
Here were not mingled, in the city's pomp,
Of life's extremes the grandeur and the gloom;
Judgment awoke not here her dismal trump,
Nor sealed in blood a fellow-creature's doom;
Nor mourned the captive in a living tomb.
One venerable man, beloved of all,
Sufficed, where innocence was yet in bloom,
To sway the strife, that seldom might befall;
And Albert was their judge in patriarchal hall.
How reverend was the look, serenely aged,
He bore, this gentle Pennsylvanian sire,
Where all but kindly fervours were assuaged,
Undimmed by weakness' shade, or turbid ire!
And though, amidst the calm of thought, entire,
Some high and haughty features might betray
A soul impetuous once, 'twas earthly fire
That fled composure's intellectual ray,
As Aetna's fires grow dim before the rising day.
I boast no song in magic wonders rife;
But yet, O Nature! is there naught to prize,
Familiar in thy bosom scenes of life?
And dwells in daylight truth's salubrious skies
No form with which the soul may sympathize?—
Young, innocent, on whose sweet forehead mild
The parted ringlet shone in sweetest guise,
An inmate in the home of Albert smiled,
Or blessed his noonday walk;—she was his only child.
The rose of England bloomed on Gertrude's cheek:—
What though these shades had seen her birth, her sire
A Briton's independence taught to seek
Far western worlds; and there his household fire
The light of social love did long inspire;
And many a halcyon day he lived to see,
Unbroken but by one misfortune dire,
When fate had reft his mutual heart—but she
Was gone;—and Gertrude climbed a widowed father's knee.
A loved bequest;—and I may half impart
To them that feel the strong paternal tie,
How like a new existence to his heart
That living flower uprose beneath his eye,
Dear as she was from cherub infancy,
From hours when she would round his garden play,
To time when, as the ripening years went by,
Her lovely mind could culture well repay,
And more engaging grew, from pleasing day to day.
I may not paint those thousand infant charms;
(Unconscious fascination, undesigned!)
The orison repeated in his arms,
For God to bless her sire and all mankind;
The book, the bosom on his knee reclined;
Or how sweet fairy-lore he heard her con,
(The playmate ere the teacher of her mind!)
All uncompanioned else her heart had gone,
Till now, in Gertrude's eyes, their ninth blue summer shone.
Campbell.