POETRY.

Globe, Volume I, Issue 71, 22 August 1874, Page 3

POETRY.

[From All the Year Round.~\ LOVE. The love that will soonest decay, The love that is surest to die, The love that will soon fly away, Is the love That is told by a sigh. The love that is surest to last, The love that a woman’s heart needs, The love that will ever be fast, Is the love That is spoken in deeds. THE RUBY AND THE ROSE. He was the lord of Merlintower, And I was but of low degree; She had her beauty for her dower, Nor other treasure needed she: He came, when hawthorns were a-flower, And strove to steal my love from me. Oh ! she was sweeter than the wind That blowefh over Indian Isles : As April bright, than June more kind, Fawn-wild, and full of winsome wiles. And I, alas ? had learnt to rind My only life beneath her smiles. He sent my love a ruby rare, That might have graced imperial brows. No gem had I. To deck her hair I sent her—but a simple rose ; And prayed her, on a night, to wear The gift of him whose love she chose. “ Come, queen of all my heart’s desire I Crown me or slay ! My soul is stirred To challenge fate. My pulses tire Of fear’s chill tremor. Sings the bird Of hope for him who dares aspire ?’’ A lover’s scroll, and wild of word I We watched her coming, he and I, With utter dread my heart stood still. The moon’s wan crescent waned on high, The nightingale had sung his fill, In the dim distance seemed to die The echo of his latest trill. The flower-trailed gate, our tryst of old, Gleamed whitely ’neath the clustering bloom Of the dusk-starring jasmine. Cold His shadow fell, a ghostly gloom Lurked where it lay. Oh heart o’er bold ! Hast thou but hastened utter doom ? A still cold smile slept on his face, That all my hope to anguish froze ; Then, in the silence of the place, We heard her flower-pied porch unclose, And—in her hair’s silk-soft embrace, There nestled warm a ripe-red rose !