Alexandria Gazette & Advertiser

POETRY.

European Magazine for November, 1817.

THE BRIDE'S DIRGE.

Written on the death of the Princess Charlotte, of England, by the author of Hohenelm, Legends of Lampadosa, the Hall of Flowers, &c.

Note.—The Western Islanders, imagine, that an apparition resembling the Mermaid, called "Flora," or the Spirit of the Green Isle, always precedes the death of a young and lovely bride. This apparition has lately been seen.

"Woe to thee, Green Isle!—woe to thee!
A voice said from the silver sea,
The warden from his watch-tower bent,"

But land, and wave, and firmament,
So calmly slept, he might have heard,
The swift wing of the mountain bird.

Nor breeze, nor breath his beacon stirr'd.
Yet from the unfathom'd caves below,
Thrice came that drear, death-boding word,
And the long echoes answered "Woe!"

The warden from his tower looks round,
And now he hears the slow waves bring
Each to the shore a silver sound—

When she sits in the pomp of her ocean bed,
In depths which man has never found!

The Spirit of the Isle is singing,
With her scarf of light around her spread,
The mariner thinks on the misty tide.
He sees the moon's soft rainbow glide;
Her song in the noon of night he hears,
And trembles while his bark he steers...

FLORA'S SONG.

I come in the morn! I come in the hour,
When the blossoms of beauty rise;
I gather the fairest and richest flower,
Where Heaven's dew purest lies.

Then rest thee bride!
In thy beauty's pride,
Thou wilt rest to night by Flora's side!

The eye I touch must be soft and blue,
As the sky where the stars are gleaming:
And the breast must be fair as the fleecy clouds
Where the angels of bliss lie dreaming;

And the spirit within as pure and bright,
As the stream that leaps among tufts of roses,
And sparkles along all life and light,
Then calm in its open bed reposes.

Ah! ... rest the bride!
By thy true love's side,
To-morrow a shroud his hope shall hide!

I saw them wreathing a crown for thee,
With the riches of empires in it,
But thy bridal robe was a winding sheet,
And the loves that crown'd thee sat to spin it,

They heap'd with garlands thy purple bed,
And every flower on earth they found thee;
But every flower in the wreath shall fade,
Save those thy bounty scatter'd round thee:

Yet sweetly sleep,
While my hour I keep,
For angels to night shall watch and weep.

O! Green Isle! woe to thy hope and pride!
To day thy rose was bright and glowing;
The bud was full, the root was wide,
And the stream of love around it flowing!

To-morrow thy tower shall stand alone;
Thy hoary oak shall live and flourish,
But the dove from its branches shall be gone;
The rose that deck'd its stem shall perish.

FAZIO.