"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.
He comes not! 'Tis a dreadful thing to hear them as they rave,
The savage wolf-train howling, like the near burst of a wave.
She thought it was a father's cry she heard--a father's cry!
And she flung her from the cottage door, in startled agony.
Good Virgin save thee, gentle girl! they are no knightly train
That mark thee for their sinless prey--thou wilt not smile again;
The blood is streaming on thy cheek; the heart it ceases slow;
A father gazes on his child--God help a father's woe!
HYMN TO ORION
Orion! old Orion! who dost wait
Warder at heaven's star-studded gate,
On a throne where worlds might meet
At thy silver sandal'd feet,
All invisible to thee,
Gazing through immensity;
For thy crowned head is higher
Than the ramparts of earth-searching fire,
And the comet his blooded banner, there
Flings back upon the waveless air.
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