"Am I so changed?—and yet we two
Oft hand in hand have played;
This brow hath been all bathed in dew

From wreaths which thou hast made; We have knelt down and said one prayer, And sung one vesper strain;

My soul is dim with clouds of care-
Tell me those words again!

"Life hath been heavy on my headI come a stricken deer,

Bearing the heart, midst crowds that bled, To bleed in stillness here."

She gazed, till thoughts that long had slept
Shook all her thrilling frame-

She fell upon his neck and wept,
Murmuring her brother's name.

Her brother's name !-and who was he,
The weary one, the unknown,
That came, the bitter world to flee,

A stranger to his own?

He was the bard of gifts divine

To sway the souls of men:
He of the song for Salem's shrine,
He of the sword and pen!

ULLA; OR, THE ADJURATION

125

ULLA; OR, THE ADJURATION

"Yet speak to me! I have outwatched the stars,
And gazed o'er heaven in vain, in search of thee.
Speak to me! I have wandered o'er the earth,
And never found thy likeness. Speak to me!
This once-once more!"-MANFRED.

"THOU'RT gone!-thou'rt slumbering low,
With the sounding seas above thee :
It is but a restless woe,

But a haunting dream to love thee !
Thrice the glad swan has sung

To greet the spring-time hours,
Since thine oar at parting flung

The white spray up in showers.

There's a shadow of the grave on thy hearth and round thy home;

Come to me from the ocean's dead!-thou'rt surely of them-come!"

'Twas Ulla's voice! Alone she stood

In the Iceland summer night,

Far gazing o'er a glassy flood

From a dark rock's beetling height.

"I know thou hast thy bed

Where the sea-weed's coil hath bound thee;

The storm sweeps o'er thy head,

But the depths are hushed around thee.

What wind shall point the way

To the chambers where thou'rt lying?

Come to me thence, and say

If thou thought'st on me in dying?

I will not shrink to see thee with a bloodless lip and cheek. Come to me from the ocean's dead !—thou'rt surely of them-speak!"

She listened-'twas the wind's low moan,
"Twas the ripple of the wave,
"Twas the wakening osprey's cry alone
As it startled from its cave.

"I know each fearful spell
Of the ancient Runic lay,
Whose muttered words compel
The tempest to obey.

But I adjure not thee

By magic sign or song;

My voice shall stir the sea

By love-the deep, the strong!

By the might of woman's tears, by the passion of her sighs, Come to me from the ocean's dead!-by the vows we pledged, arise!"

Again she gazed with an eager glance,

Wandering and wildly bright; —

She saw but the sparkling waters dance
To the arrowy northern-light.

"By the slow and struggling death
Of hope that loathed to part,
By the fierce and withering breath
Of despair on youth's high heart-

ULLA; OR, THE ADJURATION

By the weight of gloom which clings
To the mantle of the night,

By the heavy dawn which brings

Naught lovely to the sight

127

By all that from my weary soul thou hast wrung of grief

and fear,

Come to me from the ocean's dead!

Awake, arise,

appear!"

Was it her yearning spirit's dream?
Or did a pale form rise,

And o'er the hushed wave glide and gleam,
With bright, still, mournful eyes?

"Have the depths heard? They have! My voice prevails: thou'rt there, Dim from thy watery grave—

O thou that wert so fair!

Yet take me to thy rest!

There dwells no fear with love;
Let me slumber on thy breast,

While the billow rolls above!

Where the long-lost things lie hid, where the bright ones have their home,

We will sleep among the ocean's dead. Stay for me, stay!-I come!"

There was a sullen plunge below,

A flashing on the main;

And the wave shut o'er that wild heart's woe

Shut, and grew still again.

TO WORDSWORTH

THINE is a strain to read among the hills,
The old and full of voices,-by the source
Of some free stream, whose gladdening presence fills
The solitude with sound; for in its course

Even such is thy deep song, that seems a part
Of those high scenes, a fountain from their heart.

Or its calm spirit fitly may be taken

To the still breast in sunny garden bowers,
Where vernal winds each tree's low tones awaken,
And bud and bell with changes mark the hours.
There let thy thoughts be with me, while the day
Sinks with a golden and serene decay.

Or by some hearth where happy faces meet,
When night hath hushed the woods with all their birds,
There, from some gentle voice, that lay were sweet
As antique music, linked with household words;
While in pleased murmurs woman's lips might move,
And the raised eye of childhood shine in love.

Or where the shadows of dark solemn yews
Brood silently o'er some lone burial-ground,
Thy verse hath power that brightly might diffuse
A breath, a kindling, as of spring, around;
From its own glow of hope and courage high,
And steadfast faith's victorious constancy.

True bard and holy !-thou art even as one
Who, by some secret gift of soul or eye,