The Rhode Island Republican

POETRY.

From the U. S. Review and Lit. Gaz.

THE DAMSEL OF PERU.

Where olive leaves were twinkling in every
wind that blew,
There sat beneath the pleasant shade a damsel
of Peru:
Betwixt the slender boughs, as they opened
to the air,
Came glimpses of her snowy arm and of her
glossy hair;
And sweetly rang her silver voice amid that
shady nook.
As from the shrubby glen is heard the sound
of hidden brook.

'Tis a song of love and valor, in the noble
Spanish tongue,
That once upon the sunny plains of Old Cas-
tile was sung,
When, from their mountain holds, on the
Moorish rout below,
Had rushed the Christians like a flood, and
swept away the foe
Awhile the melody is still, and then breaks
forth anew
wilder rhyme, a livelier note, of freedom
and Peru.

For she has bound the sword to a youthful
lover's side,
And sent him to the war, the day she should
have been his bride,
And bade him bear a faithful heart to battle
for the right,
And held the fountains of her eyes till he was
out of sight;
Since the parting kiss was given six weary
months are fled,
And yet the foe is in the land, and blood
must yet be shed.

A white hand parts the branches, a lovely
face looks forth,
And bright dark eyes gaze steadfastly and
sadly toward the north ;--
Thou lookest in vain, sweet maiden, the
sharpest eye would fail
To spy a sign of human life abroad in all the
vale;
For the noon is coming on, and the sunbeams
fiercely beat,
And the silent hills and forest tops seem reel-
ing in the heat.

That white hand is withdrawn, that air sad
face is gone,
But the music of that silver voice is flowing
sweetly on,-
Not, as of late, with cheerful tones, but
mournfully and low--
A ballad of a tender maid heart-broken long
ago,
Of him who died in battle, the youthful and
the brave,
And her who died of sorrow upon his early
grave.

But see, along that rugged path, a fiery
horseman ride,
See the torn plume, the tarnished bolt, the
sabre at his side :
God shield the hapless maiden there, if he
should mean her ill.
And suddenly the song has ceased, and sud-
denly I hear
A shriek sent up amid the shade-a shriek-
but not of fear ;
For-tender accents follow, and tenderer paus-
es speak
The overflow of gladness, when words are all
too weak;
"I lay my good-sword at thy feet, for now Pe-
ru is free,
And I am come to dwell beside the olive grove
with thee."

B.