I know you, Clara Vere de Vere: 
  You pine among your halls and towers: 
The languid light of your proud eyes
  Is wearied of the rolling hours. 
In glowing health, with boundless wealth,
  But sickening of a vague disease,
You know so ill to deal with time,
  You needs must play such pranks as these.

Clara, Clara Vere de Vere,
  If Time be heavy on your hands,
Are there no beggars at your gate. 
  Nor any poor about your lands? 
Oh! teach the orphan-boy to read,
  Or teach the orphan-girl to sew,
Pray Heaven for a human heart,
  And let the foolish yeoman go.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

LINDA TO HAFED.

     FROM “THE FIRE-WORSHIPPERS.”

“How sweetly,” said the trembling maid,
Of her own gentle voice afraid,
So long had they in silence stood,
Looking upon that moonlight flood,—­
“How sweetly does the moonbeam smile
To-night upon yon leafy isle! 
Oft in my fancy’s wanderings,
I’ve wished that little isle had wings,
And we, within its fairy bowers,
  Were wafted off to seas unknown,
Where not a pulse should beat but ours,
  And we might live, love, die alone! 
Far from the cruel and the cold,—­
  Where the bright eyes of angels only
Should come around us, to behold
  A paradise so pure and lonely! 
Would this be world enough for thee?”—­
Playful she turned, that he might see
  The passing smile her cheek put on;
But when she marked how mournfully
  His eyes met hers, that smile was gone;
And, bursting into heartfelt tears,
“Yes, yes,” she cried, “my hourly fears,
My dreams, have boded all too right,—­
We part—­forever part—­to-night! 
I knew, I knew it could not last,—­
’T was bright, ’t was heavenly, but ’t is past! 
O, ever thus, from childhood’s hour,
  I’ve seen my fondest hopes decay;
I never loved a tree or flower
  But ’t was the first to fade away. 
I never nursed a dear gazelle,
  To glad me with its soft black eye,
But when it came to know me well,
  And love me, it was sure to die! 
Now, too, the joy most like divine
  Of all I ever dreamt or knew,
To see thee, hear thee, call thee mine,—­
  O misery! must I lose that too?”

THOMAS MOORE.

LOVE NOT.

Love not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay! 
Hope’s gayest wreaths are made of earthly flowers,—­
Things that are made to fade and fall away
Ere they have blossomed for a few short hours. 
    Love not!

Love not! the thing ye love may change;
The rosy lip may cease to smile on you,
The kindly-beaming eye grow cold and strange,
The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true. 
    Love not!

Love not! the thing you love may die,—­
May perish from the gay and gladsome earth;
The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky,
Beam o’er its grave, as once upon its birth. 
    Love not!