[ 80 ] [JAN. 



THE CONTRAST : A SKETCH FROM LIFE. 



To the vale of the Elle, from the revels of town, 

 Sick, faint, and desponding, a stranger came down ; 

 He came for its quiet, the health of its hills, 

 The stir of its gales, and the songs of its rills, 

 And felt that the past and its follies would fleet, 

 Like dreams, from his mind in this happy retreat. 

 He came and his thoughts, like the blossoms of May, 

 Shot cheeringly forth in their sunny array, 

 The past flung its shadows around him no more, 

 For he stood like young Hope on Futurity's shore, 

 Glancing wide o'er its ocean, deceitful and dim, 

 For the isles that were sunny and sacred to him. 

 He dwelt in a cottage where Peace might repose, 

 And the pale cheek of Pity regain its lost rose ; . 

 A stream murmured by it, a hedge grew beside, 

 And the arms of the woodbine clung round it in pride, 

 And near it, in beauty transcendant to tell, 

 Dwelt a maiden, the pride of the vale of the Elle : 

 Her voice it was mild as the plaint of the dove, 

 But the stranger ne'er heard its sweet language of love ; 

 Her eye it was bright as the summer sun's rim, 

 But gently and fondly it glanced not on him : 

 Like a leaf on the bough, like a weed on the shore, 

 He was idly beheld and remembered no more. 

 The stranger departed, unwept for, alone ; 

 But, though sunk once again in the revels of town, 

 His mind, like the honey-fraught bee to its cell, 

 In slumber returned to the vale of the Elle. 

 How oft, 'mid the gloom and the silence of night, 

 His stream-circled cottage rose high on his sight ! 

 How oft the dear vale, and its fields and its flowers, 

 Illumined his dreams, and cheered up the lone hours ! 

 There still .in pale beauty beside him appeared 

 That form to remembrance so fondly endeared ; 

 She sate by his pillow, all silent, alone, 

 And looked as she looked in the days that were gone : 

 Her blue eye shone bright, and a faint maiden blush 

 Enamelled her cheek with its delicate flush ; 

 Her form in the magic of nature was drest, 

 And her ringlets hung light on her beautiful breast : 

 He strove to embrace her he strove but to tell 

 How long he had loved, how sincerely, how well ; 

 But swifter, alas ! than the mountain-born stream 

 She fled, and the stranger awoke from his dream. 



Year rolled upon year, he was desolate still, 

 And fainter and fainter, heath, cottage, and hill 

 Swept over his mind e'en remembrance decayed, 

 Or stirred but at thought of the Elle's fairy maid; 

 When, sudden, amid the gay world, once again 

 He beheld her the lovely, the worshipped in vain ; 

 How gracefully bending, she beamed on his view, 

 Like a lily weighed down with the summer' s-eve dew ; 

 Her charms from the maid to the matron were grown, 

 But, though many were round her, her heart was alone, 

 For the cold world of fashion had rung the sad knell 



Of the hopes she had nursed in the vale of the Elle. 



Oh Nature, one joy that springs warm from the heart 



Is worth all the hollow enchantments of art ! ' 



