’Tis well to put small faith in a simple rustic’s eye,
  This story your father heard, and haughtily denied,
The grass waves rankly now, and gives the fellow the lie,
  How many secrets the tall, deceitful grasses hide,
Patting the turf that covers a maiden’s innocent rest,
  And creeping and winding old haunted ruins among,
As silently smooth’s the mould above the murdered breast,
  Smothering down to deeper silence a buried wrong.

In your father’s gallery once, I saw your pictured face,
  Ione you were not always so sad and pale as this,
No beauty in all the long line of your noble race
  Had eyes so softly bathed in bright bewitchment of bliss,
You were just nineteen, they said—­it was painted in Spain
  The year before you came—­it was on your foreign tour,
By an artist too low to be reached by your disdain,
  A delicate, passionate-hearted boy, proud and poor.

So said the rumors floating to us across the sea,
  You had only an invalid mother with you there,
I fancy that then you set your heart’s pure feelings free
  For the first time, far from your proud old father’s care,
For you used to wander down the shaded garden ways,
  Your slight hand closely clasped by the fair-haired
        English youth,
His blue eyes bent on your blushing face, so rumor says,
  Though such light birds are not to be trusted much in truth.

Your face is not the face that looked from the antique frame,
  Ione, and even that is gone from the oaken wall;
That picture that never was painted for gold or fame,
  So vowed the artist friend who went with me to the hall;
But the pain on your white brow sits regally I ween,
  The smile on your perfect lips is perilously sweet,
My slavish glances crown you my love, my fate, my queen,
  As you pass in peerless beauty adown the village street.

SUMMER DAYS.

Like emerald lakes the meadows lie,
  And daisies dot the main;
The sunbeams from the deep blue sky
  Drop down in golden rain,
And gild the lily’s silver bell,
  And coax buds apart,
But I miss the sunshine of my youth,
  The summer of my heart.

The wild birds sing the same glad song
  They sang in days of yore;
The laughing rivulet glides along,
  Low whispering to the shore,
And its mystic water turns to gold
  The sunbeam’s quivering dart,
But I miss the sunshine of my youth,
  The summer of my heart.

The south wind murmurs tenderly
  To the complaining leaves;
The Flower Queen gorgeous tapestry
  Of rose and purple weaves. 
Yes, Nature’s smile, the wary while,
  Wears all its olden truth,
But I miss the sunshine of my heart,
  The summer of my youth.

THE LADY CECILE.