And adds another strand unto its nest,

Then, on the neighboring trellis, pours its song.
The poor man's cottage is its favorite haunt;
And he is poor, indeed, who to his roof
Can welcome not the yearly visitor,

To cheer his door with music! There, too, comes,
But less to be desired, the boring bee,

Blowing his warning horn, and in the wood
Mining his secret galleries secure.

A carpenter is he who for himself

Builds, and destroys for others; while the dust
Of his incessant saw upon the floor
Demands the busy broom. Some on the face
Wear the white badge of innocence, and these
Fall frequent captives to the boy who frights
The smaller children with the stingless shape.
The wayward swallows flicker through the air,
Or, safely sheltered 'neath the mossy eaves,
Sit chattering scandal at their clay-built doors;
While others, with a taste for soot and smoke,
Dart down the chimney, with a muffled noise,
Echoing the distant thunder. For these sounds
Olivia hath no ear, nor any eye

For aught save that dear page o'er which she pores,
Reading it with her heart as with her sight!
Secure from all intrusion, there she sits
Beside her chamber-window. O'er the sill
The creeping vine looks in, and on her brow,
Flushed with delight, the passing air is shed
Fresh with the perfume of the coming rain;
And ere she is aware the darkness falls,
Deeper than twilight, and the first big drops
Rattle like pebbles on the sultry shingles,

And splash the window-ledge. Then bursts the shower,

And roars along the roof. The while, outside,

The house-top smokes with the rebounding spray;

The troughs with fulness choke and overrun;

And noisy water, streaming from the eaves,
Deepens the furrows in the earth beneath.
Or, if the shower abates a breathing-spell,
The crooked flash blinds the calm instant, when
The sudden thunder stamps upon the storm,

And fiercer, fuller, louder than before,

The drowning deluge pours, and frights the house
To silence and to wonder. Still she reads,

And thus the tenor of the letter runs :

"The lands which I most wished to tread,
The scenes which I most wished to see,

The shrines of the immortal dead

Have known me, and I now am free.

"There is no chain the tyrant makes
So strong as that of young Desire,
No chord the siren Music wakes
So sweet as Fancy's pilgrim lyre.

RZZ

"I've traced the chain which led me on,
And saw it fall, like links of sand,
And followed till the charm was gone
From Fancy's harp-awaking hand.

"If for myself I lived alone,

If there was no fond heart to greet
With love the fulness of my own,

I here could deem my life complete.

"Desire achieved is pleasure lost-
Hope dies when cold possession comes—
And Memory poorly pays the cost

With her exact and formal sums."

Thus far she reads, and with a tremor stops.
A tear is on the page-one mournful tear—
As it would blot the last sad verse away.
Who tells me Love is blind?

Oh, say not so!
He is an Argus in the soul which sits
And watches with an hundred tireless eyes—
A diligent recorder of each act

And word is he. The steward of his house
Sleeps not in indolence beside the wine,

Or squanders among strangers, unrebuked,
The master's wealth! And still Olivia reads:-

"If I have said, a hope achieved

Is something lost, oh! do not frown;
Nor let your gentle mind be grieved
That love when won is pleasure flown.

"For, in my inmost heart, I hold

Our love was never here begun;
But, old as our two souls are old,
It dates more cycles than the sun.

"That somewhere, in God's outer space,
Our spirits had together birth,
With kindred ties, no time or place
Can utterly destroy on earth.

"Then since our love was never won,
And cannot wilt in sun or frost,
Still let me sing, as I have done--
'Desire achieved is pleasure lost!'"'

Her heart, rebuked, is touched to tenderness,
And through the starry light of swimming tears,
Too happy to be shed, she reads agein“:—

"I walk in an unbroken dream
Of thy remembered light,
A moving dome it glows by day,
A sheltering arch by night!

My waking hours in peace are spent

I sleep as in a guarded tent!"

Oh, love, thrice happy love, that thus can make

A day of darkness, and, at noontime, shed

A light which gilds the sunshine! Naught she hears,
Nor sees the swelling freshet in the vale,

The stream, a roaring torrent, bearing down
Dead limbs and fallen trees, and in its wrath
Leaving the meadows fenceless, and, anon,
Robbing the woodman of his winter cords.
Still, as the rain assaults the roof, she reads :-

“I see Italia, with her spires and domes,

Her pinnacled cathedrals and her towers,
Her castles, and gray ruins, and the homes
Of splendid infamy in princely bowers!
Here Sin and Shame together herd, like gnomes
Mining in secret, and here Hunger cowers,
And squalid Want before the palace waits,
And stays the stranger passing at the gates!

"Where Art, of all the good which hath been, lives,
Holding decaying state, half imbecile,
Like Tyranny, and now no more receives
The aid of genius, but with fading smile
Lives on the past; or, if a new hand gives-

As Allston and Thorwaldsen gave erewhile

An impulse to her old triumphal car,

It is not native here, but comes from far!

"Where once the North, in swift destruction skilled, Trampled the arts to ruin, now, behold,

Across the Alps it comes again to build;

And the New World, with reverence for the Old, Sends her few sons, with native ardor filled,

Lending new life where all is dead and cold. The Tuscan capital and haughty Rome

Grow prouder while they hold our sculptor's home.

But all these glorious galaxies of art-
This antique world-this garden of the past-
Not long can bid the dream of home depart.
The marble Venus hath a charm to last
With those alone who wear a wandering heart.
Beside the Apollo, watching where is cast

His long-gone arrow, oft I stand and see
Its far flight ever guiding back to thee.

"Oh for one hour along the quiet lane

Which leads between the school and thy dear home,

To breathe those tender April vows again!

Or by the stream, or through the woods to roam,

As we were wont when summer held her reign,

Conversing love, though from our lips might come No sound of words! Oh, sighing hearts, give o'er, Ye yet shall sing together as of yore!"

The page is finished, and a sudden glow,
Sent from an iris towering in the east,
Sheds o'er her face its lustre, till she sees
And blesses the bright bow, as happy sign
And confirmation of her lover's words!

BOOK FOURTH.

THE storm is past; but still the torrent roars,
Louder and louder, with incessant swell.
The brook, near by, hath overswept its bounds,
Drowning its tallest rushes; and the board
Which made the path continuous to the school-
And where the children loitered to behold
The minnows playing-now is borne afar,
Sweeping above the bowing hazel tops.
Within the opening west, the careful sun-
Like one who throws his mansion doors apart,
And looks abroad, to scan his wide estate-
Is forth to note the progress of the storm,
And what its rage hath wrought. Afar and near,
The clouds are all ablaze with amber light;
The earth receives it, and the fields look glad;
And still the rainbow, brightening as it grows,
Rises and bends, and makes the perfect arch.
All crowd the porch, and wonder at the flood,
With various surmises and alarms;
And Master Ethan takes his hat and cane,
("Pilgrim," he calls the cane, for it hath been
Through many generations handed down,
Since first some long-gone ancestor had found
The straight stem growing in an English grove
And gave the ivory top,) " Pilgrim” he takes,
And strides across the vale. Not winding round
By easy paths, but with a course direct,

O'er fences and ploughed fields, to younger feet
Forbidding, bends his steps, and gains the mill;
And lo! the sad fulfilment of his fears!

The dam has burst! and, with a roar of triumph,
The freshet mocks the miller as it flies.
There stands the parson, there his good wife stands,
Surrounded by their children, and with words
Of wonder and of comfort Ethan comes.
The miller takes his sympathizing hand,
And in reply makes answer with a sigh-
"He rules the storm, the floods are in His hold,
He gives and takes, and doeth all things well!"
The sun goes down; the day departs in peace;
And through the vale the starry tapers gleam,
Signals of household calm, from cottage homes;

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And here and there, perchance, the slender ray
Conducts the venturous feet of rustic swain,
Who seeks the fireside where the maiden sits
Expectant of his step and welcome knock.
Not thus Olivia waits; but even thus,
Beside the wheelwright's evening-lighted hearth,
Her gentle friend, with an uneasy breast,
Holds anxious quiet till her lover comes.

Not long she waits, but, with a fluttering heart,
Hears his approach, and welcomes him with smiles
And maiden blush discreet. The well-pleased sire

Takes, with rough grasp, the youth's smooth hand in his,
And points the place of honor by the fire.
The matron, with misgivings in her mind,
Bends the cold nod, and, bustling for a while
About her household cares, withdraws in doubt,
Shaking her dubious head. Not so the squire:
He sits and lights his pipe, in social mood,
Which, oft as jovial converse lets go out,
As oft the glowing ember reillumes.
At last, with easy tapping at the jamb,
The ashes fall; the pipe is laid aside,

And he departs, and leaves the room to love-
To happy whisperings, breathing words so low
That naught is heard except the cricket's song,
In chorus with the simmering of the log
And muttering flame, which hath a voice prophetic.
Oh, Muse, forbear! Although 'mid scenes like this,
Thy wont is ever to draw softly near,

And sit eavesdropping at the door of Love!
Forbear, forbear! and be no record kept,
Except within the pages of their hearts,
For Time hereafter to peruse with joy,

Or Grief to blot with tears. Or if to note

Thou needs must lend thine ear, approach, invade
The sanctuary, by intruding feet

Seldom assailed-chief bedroom of the house-
And say the tenor of the long dispute.

"He is no choice of mine," so speaks the spouse.
To which the squire demands, with testy words,
"A reason, wife, a reason?-without that
Your talk is but an idle wind, to which

My set conviction is no weathervane."

Well, call it but a wind," the wife replies;

"But 'tis a wind which runs before the storm,

And tells which way the bitter cloud is coming.

And as for reason, it is quite enough

My heart mislikes him, and I never found

My instincts wrong. Besides, you know the dream

I told you of." To which the husband answers,

With growing tartness, "Wind-heart-instinct-dream!

A woman's reason truly! Now hear mine:

The youth is comely, and our daughter loves him,
And, fresh returned from college, is well bred,
With so much learning that the neighborhood
Looks on him wondering, and the loutish swains