THE RUSTIC SHRINE.

———

BY GEO. W. DEWEY.

———

Their names were found cut upon a rural bench, overgrown with vines, which proved to be at once Love’s shrine and cenotaph. Legends of the Rhine.

A shadow of the cypress bough

Lies on my path to-day—

A melancholy—which in vain

I strive to chase away.

The angel Memory hath flown

To old and cherished things,

To bring the light of early years

Around me on her wings;

And where the love-lorn birds complain

Within their green abode,

Between two elms, a rustic seat

Invites her from the road.

There shall she sit, as oft before,

And sigh as oft again,

O’er names engraved, which long have braved

The sunshine and the rain.

And one—it is the dearest name

On Love’s unnumbered shrines:—

So dear, that even envious Time

Hath guarded it with vines;

And wreathed it with his choicest flowers.

As if the bridal claim,

Which Fate denied unto her brow,

Should still adorn her name!

Ah, well do I remember yet

The day I carved that name!

The rattle of the locusts’ drum

Thrills o’er me now the same;

Adown the lane the wayward breeze

Comes with a stealthy pace,

And brings the perfume of the fields

To this deserted place:—

Unto her blushing cheek again

It comes—the blessèd air!

Caressing, like a lover’s hand,

The tresses of her hair.

The brook runs laughing at her feet,

O’erhead the wild-bird sings,

The air is filled with butterflies,

As though the flowers had wings:—

But this is Fancy’s pilgrimage,

And lures me back in vain!

The brook, the bench, the flowers and vines

I ne’er may see again;

For this is but an idle dream

That mocks me evermore—

And memory only fills the place

My loved one filled of yore!

J. Dill, Sc. TORTOSA, FROM THE ISLAND OF RUAD.