My heart was just as thou, as light—­
      As loving of the breeze,
    That kiss’d thee in its elfin flight,
      Through the green acacia trees.

    And now the winter snow-flakes lie
      All on thy widow’d wing;
    Trembler! methinks I hear thee sigh
      For the silver days of spring.

    But shake thy plume—­the world is free
      Before thee—­warbler, fly! 
    Blest by a sunbeam and by me,
      Bird of my heart! good-bye!

THE WOLF-DROVE

    No night-star in the welkin blue! no moonshade round the trees
    That grew down to the sea-swept foot of the ancient Pyrenees! 
    The cold gray mantle of the mist, along the shoulders cast
    Of those wild mountains, to and fro, hung waving in the blast.

    A snow-crown rising on their brows, in royalty they stood,
    As if they vice-reign’d on a throne of winter solitude;
    Those hills that rose far upward, till in majesty they bent
    Their world’s great eye-orb on her own immortal lineament!

    The howl, the long deep howl was heard, the rushing like a wave
    Of the wolf train from their forest haunt, in some old mountain cave;
    Like a sea-wave, when the wind is horsed behind its foamy crest,
    And it lifts upon the shell-built shore, its azure-spotted breast.

    They came with war-whoop, following each other, like a thread,
    Through the long labyrinth of trees, in sunless archway spread;
    Their gnarled trunks in shadowy lines rose dimly, few by few,
    Mail’d in their mossy armouring,—­a pathless avenue!

    In sooth, there was a shepherd girl by her aged father’s side;
    He gazed upon her deep dark eyes, in glory and in pride;
    The mother’s soul was living there,—­the image full and wild,
    Of one he loved—­of one no more, was beaming in her child.

    And she was at her father’s side, her raven tresses felt
    Upon his care-worn cheek, as gay and joyfully she knelt,
    Kissing the old man’s tears away, by the embers burning faint,
    While she sung the holy aves, and a vesper to her saint.

    “Now bar the breezy lattice, love!—­but hist! how fares the night? 
    Methought I heard the wolf abroad.  Heaven help!  I heard aright—­
    My mantle!—­By the Mother Saint! our flock is in the fold? 
    How think you, love? wake up the hound, I ween the wolf is bold.”

    “Stay, stay; ’tis past!” “I hear it still; to rest, I pray, to rest.” 
    “Nay, father! hold; thou must not go;” and silently she press’d
    The old man’s arm, and bade him stay, for love of Heaven and her: 
    His danger was too wild a thought, for so fond a girl to bear.

    He kiss’d her, and they parted then; but, through the lattice low,
    She gazed amid the vine-twigs pale, all cradled to and fro;
    The holy whisper of the wind stole lightly by the eaves,—­
    A sad dirge, sighing to the fall of the winter-blighted leaves.