THE HAUNTED HEART.

———

BY MISS MARY L. LAWSON.

———

’Tis true he ever lingers at her side,

But mark the wandering glances of his eye:

A lover near a fond and plighted bride,

With less of love than sorrow in his sigh!

And well it is for her, that gentle maid,

Who loves too well, too fervently, for fears,

She deems not her devotion is repaid

With deep repinings o’er life’s early years.

For oft another’s image fills his breast,

E’en when he breathes to her love’s tender vow;

While her soft hand within his own is prest,

And timid blushes mantle her young brow,

Fond memory whispers of the dreamy past,

Its hopes and joys, its agony and tears;

In vain from out his soul he strives to cast

One shadowy form—the love of early years.

Ne’er from his heart the vision fades away;

Amid the crowd, in silence, and alone,

The stars by night, the clear blue sky by day,

Bring to his mind the happiness that’s flown;

A tone of song, the warbling of the birds,

The simplest thing that memory endears,

Can still recall the form, the voice, the words

Of her, the best beloved of early years.

He dares not seek the spot where first they met,

Too dangerous for his only hope of rest,

His strong, but fruitless effort to forget

Those scenes that wake deep sorrow in his breast;

And yet the quiet beauty of the grove

All plainly to his restless mind appears,

Where, as the sun declined, he lov’d to rove

With her, the first fond dream of early years.

He sees the stream, beside whose brink they strayed,

Engross’d in converse sweet of coming hours,

And watch’d the rippling currents as they played,

In ebb and flow, upon the banks of flowers:

And the old willow, ’neath whose spreading shade

She own’d her love—again her voice he hears,

He starts—alas! the vision only fades

To leave regretful pangs for early years.

It was his idle vanity that changed

The pure, deep feelings of her trusting heart,

Whose faithful love, not even in thought had ranged,

But worship’d him, from all the world apart;

Now cold and altered is her beaming eye,

And no fond hope his aching bosom cheers

That she will shed one tear or breathe one sigh

For him she lov’d so well in early years.

He feels she scorns him with a bitter scorn,

He questions not the justice of his fate,

For long had she his selfish caprice borne,

And wounded pride first taught her how to hate.

Oh! ye who cast away a heart’s deep love,

Remember, ere affection disappears,

That keen reproachful throbs your soul may move

Like his who lives to mourn life’s early years.