I listened, and from one of the groves I caught these words,

"And many were seen in her shining train
With passionate looks, and pleading air,
Watching her glances, in hope to gain
A partial smile for their homage there."

"One of those who follow, is her sister," said Lycophron, "you see her arm is entwined with a blue-eyed fairy, whose countenance is sparkling with joy and gladness, and the next--" "Enough-enough," "said I, "let me return to the city, my imagination is already bewildered."

X.

When

THE DISCOVERY OF MADEIRA.

When Edward reigned with sceptre red
From blood of Crescy's crimson plain ;-
England's barons plunder-fed,

Were proud to lose the Norman stain
Of fealty to a foreign head,

And claim supremacy again;-
While coffers filled with foreign gold
And deeds of arms by minstrels told,
Swelled the pride too great before,
Like waves that wash their island shore-
There dwelt on Severn's peopled side,
Anne Dorset, known in metric song
To all who read the Norman tongue;
Her sire, an Earl of high degree,
(Fair Berkeley's Earl 'twas said to be)
Rich and renowned, in battle tried,
Whose proud domain extended wide,
To the green islands of the sea.

Bowered in trees, where once had been
The smoke of Druid offerings,

Trees, which had reared their honors green,
Since the great-birth day of all things;

His castle stood majestic, gray,

And mantled here and there with moss,

But still not desolate as they

With shattered wall and half-filled foss,

The records of a former day

That speak of ruin, war and rage-

But strong in venerable age,

With terraces for ladies meet,

To wend their way with slender feet;
While Burgundy and Provence rose
On either side their leaves disclose,
Their sovereign's gentle step to greet,

There was an air of martial power,
Yet the hour of strife seemed over,
And the lady sat in perfumed bower,
Where bee and bird delight to hover,
More lovely, than as poets tell,
From her rose-tinted scalop shell,
A goddess rose, mid snowy foam,
From ocean waves, her native home-
Lovely in robe and braided hair,
And girdle wrought with jewels rare,
A cross of pearl was on her brow-
A band of rubies bound her arm,
Her lip seemed parting with a vow,
Her eye was lighted with a charm,
As though the spirit of love were there,
Breathing through her red lip, his prayer ;
So bright a form was never seen

In fabled court of beauty's queen.

And her lip had plighted the secret vow,

And her eye was beaming with love, I trow,
And the still light of the starry skies,

While she bent her ear to young Redwald's sighs,
Had witnessed the pledge, as 'twas rashly given,
Through the trembling leaves of that bowery heaven.

But not in modern times alone

Hath red gold broken beauty's chain

The father bore a heart of stone

And the prayer of love was breath'd in vain.

A letter de cachet from the king

Did Berkeley to the castle bring

Of tyrant power, the stern decree,

That Redwald shall no more be free

Until the fatal seal be set,

On all fond hopes that linger yet.

Anne heard at length the fearful tale,
As she was borne, all trembling, pale-
Like the white flower that shrinking bends,
While furiously the shower descends-
To that dread altar, where half dead,
She fell, as life and sense had fled-
While the stern lord, her father chose
For husband to his only daughter,
Stood all unmoved, as when mid foes,
He gazed and smiled upon the slaughter.
And tho' no word or prayer she said,
Or even in answer bowed her head,
While the false priest the ritual read,
The minions of her father's power,

Pronounc'd her wedded from that hour.
The jealous sire no longer binds
Young Redwald to his distant prison;
And swifter than autumnal winds
The tower on Severn's bank he finds,
Before two suns have o'er him risen.
A barque and gallant friends prepare
To wait upon his bidding there,

mi moored beneath a headland high, In threatening ambuscade they lie.

Young Redwald sought that sacred spot,
Never by night or day forgot
Where he so oft had told of love,
With witness, none, save stars above-
He stood beneath the lonely tower,

And blessed the evening beam that lighted
The lady at the wonted hour,
Escaping from the guards of power,
To weep o'er hope so sadly blighted.
Short was the meeting, yet 'twas long,
If the swift flow of thought makes time ;-
Love dwelt on Redwald's fluent tongue,
And sophistry her heart delighted,
Till she could scarce believe it crime
To leave a home where heart was slighted,
Reason chilled, and love benighted,
For the warm light of Redwald's eye,
And the long day of ceaseless bliss,
Where the balmy breath of some distant sky
Should tell no tale of their stolen kiss.

They fly, the barque receives them flying-
The canvass swells, the shouts resound-
The vessel on her side is lying

Their trembling hearts with joy rebound,
And soon, they trust, on foreign ground
To rest, their tyrant's rage defying.

There was a joyous dawn upon the sea,
The mildest blue of heaven, arched above,
The warriors, looked with firm defiance back
On Severn's green and richly wooded shore;

Their burnished armour glittered bright, their plumes
Waved in the breeze that bore them swiftly on,
The tall ship seem'd to fly upon the foam,
Like a fleet bird upon the fleecy clouds.
And Anne with radiant eyes of pleasure hailed
The hope of freedom on the chainless wave.

The coast of France, a distant cloud,
Seems nearer as the breezes crowd;
Their hopes were high, their hearts were gay
And playful as the sparkling spray
That scattered from the prow,

They dreaded not the wild wind's play;

But ere the closing of that day
That beams so brilliant now,

They felt the fate of mortal things,

They heard the tempest's hurtling wings,
They saw the billowy vapours lower,
Piled mass on mass, as tho' the hour
Of giant war had come again-
And daring hands heaped hill on hill
To brave the thunder-bearer's will
On the yet unsubjected main.

The clouds swept on before the storm,
As bannered troops their column form,
To pour upon devoted foes

Their gathered multitude of woes.
"Twere vain to tell the agony
Of that perilous hour of pain;
Day after day, on that dark sea,
They strove the coast of France to gain-
Tho' driven far from off their course
By the wild storm's resistless force,

Almost as many days, as he of old,
Who saw the world an ocean at the flood;
Did these poor persecuted mortals float
Upon what seemed to them a world of waves.
Far from their homes, when desperate at length
They almost wished the groaning bark would sink ;
They felt the winds go down, as tho' the fiends,
Who late rode proudly on the elements,

Were sudden driven from their work of death.

There was a dreary stillness, save the plash
Of the commingled billows; and the prayers
Of those who late despaired, rose breathlessly.
Anon the clouds dispersed, and thro' each fold,
Peered forth the rays of cheerful, golden light,
And then-Oh, joy !-they hailed the sight of land.
With caution soon they hastened to the shore-
It was a land before unvisited

By foot of mortal man, but beautiful

As the much fabled gardens of Armida,

Or houri's bower of bliss, or wizard land of song.
It was Madeira's Isle, when lust of gain
Had not yet rifled all its storied sweets,
Fruits hitherto unknown, and painted flowers,
And spreading laurel trees, and crystal streams
That made a spiritual music in the groves,
And waving grass of such an emerald green,
It might have well become Titania's bed.
In truth, it bloomed as Eden must have bloomed
When our first father gazed upon its charms.

tened

The lady smiled as she moved along

And listed the note of the wild bird's song,
While the fawn came bounding to meet her hand,
Till she verily deemed it was faery land;

And leaned on her lover and thought on the bliss.
Could she dwell with her friends in a land like this,
Unmarked by the world and unfettered by forms,
To taste all life's sweets and regard not its storms.

Where streamlets gleamed from a leafy skreen
Of laurels fringing the velvet green,
Where a large tree spread its arching shade.
Their huts of branches were rudely made.

They feasted on grapes of a golden hue
Still moistened, as dripping with morning dew,
Goat's milk of the freshest, and honey as pure
As bees from the balmiest flowers procure-
With all the rich growth of a warmer clime,
Such as nurtured our fathers in ancient time.

;

But this home of peace could not long remain-
Their friends were gone to the vessel again;
Save two, who attended the lady's call,
To gather her fruits, at the evening fall
Intending to furnish that rustic cot,
And abide in peace in this humble lot,
When a whirlwind carried the barque away,
To the savage land, where the Moors hold sway,
When dashed on the cliffs of that rocky shore,
Her crew returned from their chains no more,
Save one, who conducted the Prince of Spain
To the land these lovers had reached in vain-
When their mouldering dust had ceased to be
Endowed with the form of humanity.

Young Redwald, when the morning rose,
Believed that death had met them all;
And Anne o'erwhelmed with many woes,
No longer can on Redwald call.

Her father's halls, her infant hours,
When a fond mother soothed her tears,

The thoughts, which when misfortune lowers
Oft come to mingle with our fears,
Swept through her agonizing brain,
Despair and madness in their train.
Her soul was filled with omens dark,

When the first tempest tossed their barque.
But now she thought Heaven's wrath pursued
Her flight, even to this solitude.
Deprived of voice by piercing grief,
Death brings to her a blest relief,
As pillowed on her Redwald's breast,
She sank to an eternal rest.