BY ROBT. T. CONRAD.
When that chaste blush suffused thy cheek and brow,
Whitened anon with a pale maiden fear,
Thou shrank'st in uttering what I burned to hear:
And yet I loved thee, love, not then as now.
Years and their snows have come and gone, and graves,
Of thine and mine, have opened; and the sod
Is thick above the wealth we gave to God:
Over my brightest hopes the nightshade waves;
And wrongs and wrestlings with a wretched world,
Gray hairs, and saddened hours, and thoughts of gloom,
Troop upon troop, dark-browed, have been my doom;
And to the earth each hope-reared turret hurled!
And yet that blush, suffusing cheek and brow,
'T was dear, how dear! then—but 't is dearer now.
ISOLA.
BY JOHN TOMLIN.
I dreamed that thou a lily wast,
Within a lowly valley blest;
A wingéd cherub flying past,
Plucked thee, and placed within his breast,
And there by guardian angel nurst,
Thou took'st a shape of human grace,
Until, a lowly flower at first,
Thou grew'st the first of mortal race.
Alas! if I who still was blessed
When thou wast but a lowly flower—
To pluck thy image from my breast,
Though thus thou will'st it, have no power;
Thou still to me, though lifted high
In hope and heart above the glen,
Where first thou won my idol eye,
Must spell my worship just as then.