Nacqui all’ affanno, al pianto.
Soffri tacendo il core;
Ma per soave incanto
Dell’ età mia fiore,
Come un baleno rapido
La sorte mia cangio.
Nò, nò! tergete il ciglio,
Perchè tremar, perchè?
A questo sen volate
Figlia, Sorella, Amica,
Tutto trovate in me.

Song.—“THE SLAVE’S DREAM.”—Hatton.

HERR BRANDT.

Beside the ungathered rice he lay,
His sickle in his hand,
His breast was bare—his matted hair
Was buried in the sand;
Again in the mist and shadow of sleep
He saw his native land,
Wide thro’ the landscape of his dream,
The Lordly Niger flowed,
Beneath the palm trees on the plain
Once more a king he strode;
And heard the tinkling caravans
Descend the mountain road.
He saw once more his dark-eyed Queen
Among her children stand;
They clasped his neck, they kissed his cheeks,
They held him by the hand;
A tear burst from the sleeper’s lids,
And fell into the sand.
At night he heard the lion roar,
And the fierce hyena scream;
And the river horse, as he crushed the reeds
Beside some hidden stream,
And it passed like a glorious roll of drums
Through the triumph of his dream;
He did not feel the driver’s whip,
Nor the burning heat of day,—
For death hath illumined the land of sleep;
And his lifeless body lay
A worn out fetter, that the soul
Had broken and thrown away.

Song.—“WHEN THE THORN IS WHITE WITH BLOSSOM.”—Weber.

MRS. WOKIE.

When the thorn is white with blossom,
And the fountain flows again,
Tell me, mother, must I fly him
If he seek me on the plain;
Or the meadow where the primrose first is found,
And beneath the spreading beeches
Many a violet decks the ground,
When the thorn is white with blossom
And the fountain flows again.

Should I at the fall of twilight
Hear afar his flute’s soft lays,—
Mother, must I close the lattice
If I know for me he plays;
On the willow where engrav’d I find my name,
If I linger long to read it,
Shall I hear my mother blame;
When the thorn is white with blossom,
And the fountain flows again.

Tell me if a dewy garland
Hang beside thy summer bower,
Twin’d with leaves of fragrant myrtle,
And each fairest early flower,
Must it wither, if I know he placed it there?
Mother, tell me, would you chide me,
If I bound it round my hair?
When the thorn is white with blossom,
And the fountain flows again.