“It wearies me, mine enemy, that I must weep and bear
What fills thy heart with triumph, and fills my own with care. 
Thou art leagued with those that hate me, and ah! thou know’st I feel
That cruel words as surely kill as sharpest blades of steel. 
’Twas the doubt that thou wert false that wrung my heart with pain;
But, now I know thy perfidy, I shall be well again. 
I would proclaim thee as thou art—­but every maiden knows
That she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes.”

Thus Fatima complained to the valiant Raduan,
Where underneath the myrtles Alhambra’s fountains ran: 
The Moor was inly moved, and blameless as he was,
He took her white hand in his own, and pleaded thus his cause. 
“Oh, lady, dry those star-like eyes—­their dimness does me wrong;
If my heart be made of flint, at least ’twill keep thy image long;
Thou hast uttered cruel words—­but I grieve the less for those,
Since she who chides her lover, forgives him ere he goes.”

Love and Folly. deg.

From la Fontaine.

Love’s worshippers alone can know
  The thousand mysteries that are his;
His blazing torch, his twanging bow,
  His blooming age are mysteries. 
A charming science—­but the day
  Were all too short to con it o’er;
So take of me this little lay,
  A sample of its boundless lore.

As once, beneath the fragrant shade
  Of myrtles breathing heaven’s own air,
The children, Love and Folly, played—­
  A quarrel rose betwixt the pair. 
Love said the gods should do him right—­
  But Folly vowed to do it then,
And struck him, o’er the orbs of sight,
  So hard he never saw again.

His lovely mother’s grief was deep,
  She called for vengeance on the deed;
A beauty does not vainly weep,
  Nor coldly does a mother plead. 
A shade came o’er the eternal bliss
  That fills the dwellers of the skies;
Even stony-hearted Nemesis,
  And Rhadamanthus, wiped their eyes.

“Behold,” she said, “this lovely boy,”
  While streamed afresh her graceful tears,
“Immortal, yet shut out from joy
  And sunshine, all his future years. 
The child can never take, you see,
  A single step without a staff—­
The harshest punishment would be
  Too lenient for the crime by half.”

All said that Love had suffered wrong,
  And well that wrong should be repaid;
Then weighed the public interest long,
  And long the party’s interest weighed. 
And thus decreed the court above—­
  “Since Love is blind from Folly’s blow,
Let Folly be the guide of Love,
  Where’er the boy may choose to go.”

THE SIESTA.

From the Spanish.

  Vientecico murmurador,
  Que lo gozas y andas todo, &c.