| |
| ’T IS even—on the pleasant banks of Rhine | |
| The thrush is singing and the dove is cooing; | |
| A youth and maiden on the turf recline | |
| Alone,—and he is wooing. | |
| |
| Yet wooes in vain, for to the voice of love | 5 |
| No kindly sympathy the maid discovers, | |
| Though round them both, and in the air above, | |
| The tender spirit hovers. | |
| |
| Untouched by lovely Nature and her laws, | |
| The more he pleads, more coyly she represses; | 10 |
| Her lip denies, and now her hand withdraws, | |
| Rejecting his caresses. | |
| |
| Fair is she as the dreams young poets weave, | |
| Bright eyes and dainty lips and tresses curly, | |
| In outward loveliness a child of Eve, | 15 |
| But cold as nymph of Lurley. | |
| |
| The more Love tries her pity to engross, | |
| The more she chills him with her strange behavior; | |
| Now tells her beads, now gazes on the cross | |
| And image of the Saviour. | 20 |
| |
| Forth goes the lover with a farewell moan, | |
| As from the presence of a thing inhuman;— | |
| O, what unholy spell hath turned to stone | |
| The young warm heart of woman! * * * * * | |
| ’T is midnight,—and the moonbeam, cold and wan, | 25 |
| On bower and river quietly is sleeping, | |
| And o’er the corse of a self-murdered man | |
| The maiden fair is weeping. | |
| |
| In vain she looks into his glassy eyes, | |
| No pressure answers to her hands so pressing; | 30 |
| In her fond arms impassively he lies, | |
| Clay-cold to her caressing. | |
| |
| Despairing, stunned, by her eternal loss, | |
| She flies to succor that may best beseem her, | |
| But, lo! a frowning figure veils the cross, | 35 |
| And hides the blest Redeemer! | |
| |
| With stern right hand it stretches forth a scroll, | |
| Wherein she reads, in melancholy letters, | |
| The cruel, fatal pact that placed her soul | |
| And her young heart in fetters. | 40 |
| |
| “Wretch! sinner! renegade! to truth and God, | |
| Thy holy faith for human love to barter!” | |
| No more she hears, but on the bloody sod | |
| Sinks, Bigotry’s last martyr! | |
| |
| And side by side the hapless lovers lie; | 45 |
| Tell me, harsh priest! by yonder tragic token, | |
| What part hath God in such a bond, whereby | |
| Or hearts or vows are broken? | |
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