THE LETTER.

Amid a flower-strown cottage room,
  The Lady sat at even,
Beneath the peerless evening star,
  Just peeping out in heaven;
And, in her hands, as lilies, white,
  She held a billet-doux,
Which, round upon the tranquil air,
  A grateful fragrance threw.

And now she bends her beauteous head,
  To read the written lines—­
Her white hand starts—­a crystal tear
  Upon the paper shines;
Her startled bosom gently heaves,
  Like billows capped with snow,
And quickly o’er her lovely face,
  Her blushes come and go.

Those glowing words have waked within
  Her soul, the flame of love,
Which blends her woman nature with
  The natures of above:—­
A fire whose rays will change to light
  Her lover’s darkest gloom,
Till he beholds it beam again,
  On Heaven’s undying bloom.

THE LOST PLEIAD.

No more with thy bright sisters of the sky,
  Who warble ever,
Wilt thou send forth thy choral melody,
  Sad maid! for ever.

No more the bright, innumerable train,
  Who move in Heaven,
Will know thy face upon the etherial plain,
  At rosy even.

The night will mourn thine absence ever more,
  With dewy tears,
And, the bright day, will, dimmer now, deplore,
  The darkened years.

Our wandering eyes will search for thee in vain,
  And we shall sigh
That thy high beauty could not conquer pain,
  The doom to die.

Earth scarce had mourned some lesser beauty—­thou,
  Celestial maid! 
Mid all didst wear a so unearthly brow,
  And thou—­decayed!

The beauteous thought of thee which, ray-like, slept,
  In our pure love,
Became a memory which we have kept
  To grieve above.

Gone, like the withered pride of early Spring—­
  Like sweet songs, o’er—­
Ah! thou hast turned from us thine angel wing,
  To come no more.

Struck from thy high and glittering sapphire throne,
  In upper light,
Say, did thy loveliness go, hopeless, down,
  To nether night?

Or, throned beyond the gloomy fate to fall,
  Bright maid divine! 
Sublime amid the Eternal’s flaming Hall,
  Dost thou e’er shine?

THE SLEEPER.

The sleeper lies, with closed eyes,
  And softly moving breath,
So soft, so still, her life’s sweet thrill,
  ’Tis only more than death.

Her dark, dark hair, reposing there,
  Upon her pillow’s snow,
And sweeping down her cheek’s faint brown,
  And bosom’s spotless glow.

She wakes at last, her sleep has past,
  Her eyes on me are thrown;
My sleeping love—­my heavenly dove—­
  Has been in realms unknown.

DWELLING IN HEAVEN.