A LYRIC FOR LILIAN.

I bring thee a garland, O, violet-eyed maid Its exquisite bloom in thy dark locks, I braid. Love nourished each flower with a sigh and a tear, And the sigh and the tear Shall make them more dear, And bring them new charms with each vanishing year. I fill thee a goblet—’tis the heart’s purest wine, Fresh foamed from the wine-press of St. Valentine, The Rathskeller holds it which sits in the skies, Whose roseate gleaming Is bright in its beaming, As the love-stars which shine in the heav’n of thine eyes. I bring thee a song, and though humble the strain, Love glows in each word of the burning refrain. And oh, that its notes were as wild and as sweet As the plashing of fountains Or horns on the mountains, Or songs which thy dear lips in warblings repeat.