Why, oh! wherefore didst thou win me

Only to deceive me so? Wherefore did'st thou trifle with me For the sport it gave to thee? Caring not that such diversion

Might be agony to me.

Had it been thy lot to suffer

With the bright and youthful band,

'Neath the scourge that slays the fairest,
And the noblest of the land;
Though 'twere sad to see thee wasting,
Slowly fading, day by day,

As the stars fade at the dawning,
As the shadows shrink away;
Sad to see grim death presumptuous
Seal the lips that spoke the vow,
Lay his finger on thy pulses,

Cast his shadow o'er thy brow;
Sad to see that form so queenly
Rifled of its summer bloom,
Laid by weeping friends to moulder,
In the dark, the lonely tomb.
Had I known thy spirit landed,
Far beyond this wintry blast;
Had I known thee pure and noble,
True and faithful to the last ;
Oh! I could have borne the parting,-
Could have borne to let thee go;
Though my hopes were buried with thee,
Though I idolized thee so!

Then I might have toiled and suffered,

Suffered patiently my woes,

In the hope to meet thee, darling!
Where the weary find repose.

But to make me scorn the being
In my blindness throned so high;
See her proudly, gaily careless,
Dancing on, a living lie;

See the lips on others smiling,

On whose breath my spirit hung, In whose vows my hopes were centred, To whose truth my being clung— Oh! 'tis terrible to struggle,

With that old and bitter pain

Ever rankling in my bosom,

Ever throbbing in my brain.

Bnt I will not curse thee, Jenny,
No! but bid thee flutter on,
Till thy summer day be ended,
And thy beauty faded, gone;
Till the Flatterer's tongue is silenced,
And thy hopes are buried low;
Till reflection comes to taunt thee
With the deeds of long-ago.
Then, perchance, thou'lt weep in sorrow
O'er those broken vows of thine;
Then, perchance, thou'lt learn the value
Of a heart as true as mine.

Fare-ye-well: begone, ye phantoms !

Who have marred my summer prime ;

Cast a blight o'er all my being,
Made me old before my time.
I will look among the lowly,

Till I find a bosom true,
Then I'll plant my modest lily

Where the poisonous Upas grew.

How the time has flown! 'tis midnight!

And another year has fled;

Hark! the bells ring out a requiem
O'er the faithless, lost, and dead.

WAITING FOR DEATH.

This Poem refers to the illness and death of the Poet's beloved sister, Hannah, who returned home to die; and now rests

in Endon churchyard.

WAS in the waning of a glorious day :

The sun had sunk beyond the mist-swathed hills,
Crowned with an halo of celestial light.

The gauzy clouds, in various attitudes

Of light and shade, and changing constantly,
And moving slow, fringed with a golden blush,
Like festooned curtains draped the rosy west.
'Twas in the dawn of Autumn, and the scene
Was beautiful, but o'er it hung a hush,
That pensive, sad, half-sweet, half-mournful calm,
That quietude which quells Ambition's stride,
And sets the heart a-weeping vanished loves :—
That lull, when Nature in her glowing robe,