While thus, with beating heart, pursuing still
His anxious task, slow o’er a neighbouring hill
The broad moon rose, by not a cloud concealed,
Lit up the valley, and the tomb revealed!—­
His parents’ tomb!—­and now, with wild surprise,
He saw the column burst upon his eyes—­
Fair, chaste, and beautiful; and on it read
These lines in mem’ry of his honoured dead: 
“Beneath repose the virtuous and the just,
Mingled in death, affection’s hallowed dust. 
In token of their worth, this simple stone
Is, as a daughter’s tribute, reared by one
Who loved them as such, and their name would save
As virtue’s record o’er their lowly grave.” 
“Helen!” he fondly cried, “thy hand is here!”
And the cold grave received his burning tear;
Then knelt he o’er it—­clasped his hands in prayer;
But, while yet lone and fervid kneeling there,
Before his eyes, upon the grave appear
Primroses twain—­the firstlings of the year,—­
And bursting forth between the blossomed two,
Twin opening buds in simple beauty grew. 
He gazed—­he loved them as a living thing;
And wondrous thoughts and strange imagining
Those simple flowers spoke to his listening soul
In superstition’s whispers; whose control
The wisest in their secret moments feel,
And blush at weakness they may not reveal.

VIII.

He left the place of death; and, rapt in thought,
The trysting-tree of love’s young years he sought;
And, as its branches opened on his sight,
Bathing their young buds in the pale moonlight,
A whispered voice, melodious, soft, and low,
As if an angel mourned for mortal woe,
Borne on the ev’ning breeze, came o’er his ear: 
He knew the voice—­his heart stood still to hear! 
And each sense seem’d a listener; but his eye
Sought the sad author of the wand’ring sigh;
And ’neath the tree he loved, a form as fair
As summer in its noontide, knelt in prayer. 
He clasped his hands—­his brow, his bosom burned;
He felt the past—­the buried past returned! 
Still, still he listened, till, like words of flame,
Through her low prayer he heard his whispered name! 
“Helen!” he wildly cried—­“my own—­my blest!”
Then bounded forth.—­I cannot tell the rest. 
There was a shriek of joy:  heart throbbed on heart,
And hands were locked as though they ne’er might part;
Wild words were spoken—­bliss tumultuous rolled,
And all the anguish of the past was told.

IX.

Upon her love long had her father frowned,
Till tales of Edmund’s rising fortunes found
Their way across the wilderness of sea,
And reached the valley of his birth.  But she,
With truth unaltered, and with heart sincere,
Through the long midnight of each hopeless year
That marked his absence, shunned the proffered hand
Of wealth and rank; and met her sire’s command
With tears and bended knees, until his breast
Again a father’s tenderness confessed.