from without, by our own incarnate consciousness; | silence, and then replied, "Stranger! if you have a confounding impression with reality, we fancy that hand to dare as well as a heart to feel, there may be the person before us is fully aware of all our secret that in the future which was not thought of, yesterday. history, our weaknesses, our faults; and under that Wear that ring upon your finger, wherever you may persuasion we yield to the paralysing power which be. Farewell! Do not follow me. And do not come is thus thrown over us, and the empire of moral supe- to this spot again; but wait the result of time." riority is established over our hearts.

"This line of light," said I, replying to her question, "which lies like an opal column leaning on the waves, think ye that the same brightness decks those waters which are not seen?"

"Does it not?"

"The ray, indeed, is there; but light is that ray's influence upon the eye. In like manner, the influence which pervades internity is beautified into a spirit only when it is mirrored in the fairness of a mind like yours. But, lady, why would you ascend so high in search of that which may return your interest? If it be your wish to be loved, even to the craving spirit's utmost hope, it is a wish that need not wander far."

"It is only when the affections are flung back from the earth, cold and deadened upon the heart," she replied in a graver tone, “that they turn to heaven to be revived. It is only when all the weight of worldly interests have dropped from the spirit, that its instinct is to soar upward. The love which would fulfil my least demand-which would consecrate itself to me, and in my spirit should forget its being-which would be to me an everlasting presence and an inward joy which nothing could disturb-which should surround my life, as an influence of existence and a state of the soul-whither should I look on earth for that? selfishness is the synonyme of man."

"But surely if the instincts of selfishness were wise, selfishness itself would minister to love. For is there any joy like that of giving joy? Is there any bliss comparable to his, who, in the still and inaccessible privacy of understood intention, tasted the fragrant food of intelligent affection? Love is but the expanding of our nature-the deepening of our sense. We lose a feeble bud of being, to find the full-blown flower of life. We give a single soul, to gain a double self. Is not to love a richer joy than to be loved?"

She laid a brilliant stone upon my hand, and turning quickly away, disappeared behind the high crest of rock that rose from the shore towards the inland. The rustling of her dress, and the sound of her foot. steps were audible for a moment, and then all was silent. Light was my step, and buoyant was my spirit, as I turned my steps homeward along the glittering sand. A thousand springing hopes and un. formed dreams of joy were struggling in my heart. My nerves were quickened with a former strength; my blood was beating with a wilder force. Within the sphere of consciousness there spread an inner realm of hope, which was gay with the morning sun. light of young dreams; and all was joyous power and brilliant life.

Soft are the downy threads of light that sleep along the western sky, ermining the day; bright is the dewy frost-work of the morn that gems the eastern hills; but in all the treasury of nature's wealth, there is no form so bright or so soft as the shapes of glory that lie upon the lover's mind. Love sheds a spring-time round the wintered heart, and wakes the softness of the azure breeze, in minds care-frozen by the toils of life. The budding promise of a state whose beauty is still beginning, and the fullness of whose pleasure is ever in the future, gives to the wooing heart a boundless prodigality of bliss. Love is its own reward; in the contest for happiness, it mingles in the struggle, and itself adjudges the prize. Its promises, alone, are sure, for of all the passions of our nature, its objects only are within our own bosom. He who enters on the trials of ambition, makes himself the slave of others' caprice; he who seeks for wealth, cannot be sure that the taste will abide when the power is acquired: but he, in whose breast the living waters of pure love are started, is his own source of joy. Love's shadows are substances, and its dreams delights. As the light of the moon fell upon the ring which the lady had left upon my finger, I had an opportunity of examining its character. It consisted of large ruby surrounded by a circle of diamonds, and another of the bluest sapphire that I ever saw. Ignorant of what would be the pur. pose of the command which I had received, I resolved to obey it strictly, and to wear the token constantly. To the order which forbade my returning to the place "Lady!" said I, "your words are words of truth. where I might meet again the person who now abThey remember me of the want by which the hap-sorbed my thoughts, and compelled me to abide her piness of my young years was checked, and they ex. plain the deadness which has fallen upon my later life To presume that there now exists any one who could love as my soul would demand, I may not venture; but never till this moment did I imagine tha there was any whom I could love as I would wish. The hope which might be kindled on the spot where I stand, were a balm to heal a thousand wounds, and a covert to hide me from unnumbered ills."

"No doubt: but we cannot love freely and profoundly, unless we know that we are loved. Other wise, we might delight the heart with the brightness which is in the ways of truth, the peace which is among the thoughts of heaven. But affection is like the eagle in its spirit, and never soars with all its power of wing, save when its flashing glance is fixed upon an orb as ardent as its own."

own good pleasure, I had only to submit with what grace I might, and hope that something propitious would occur.

Several days passed without my either seeing or hearing any thing which might inform me who was the lady I had thus encountered. Among the numerous families who were scattered over the adjacent country, there was constant social intercourse, and I mingled as widely as possible in the scenes of gayety that were

She fixed her eye upon me for a few moments in continually occurring, in hope of meeting her; but

the uproarious gesticulations of some scrupulous Mussulmen, showed how effectually they had eschewed the solid portions of the Christian creed. A dozen Napoleons were grouped in one corner of the room, while as many Wellingtons were tossing their arms in the other. Mingled with these was a countless throng, who, like myself, had assumed a disguise without the personation of any character. I joined the reckless merriment, which concealment made both safe and amusing, and diverted myself with the humors of the thousand persons who might thus be coped closely without the imputation of intrusion.

without success. The beauty of the women who composed the society of that part of Cyprus where I was living, was remarkable; in truth, I have visited no part of the world where nature's fairness was a gift so widely shared. But among all the fine varieties of countenance that met my eye, there was no face like that which haunted my dreams, and stood ever before me in the solitude of my thoughts. The expression of that face had a charm to fasten itself in my memory from the first moment that it fell upon my sight, and the minutest peculiarity of the features was impressed upon my remembrance with ineffaceable distinctness. A week had passed since my first meeting with Fatigued at length with the noise and tumult of the this unknown lady, when I received an invitation scene, I withdrew a little from the main stream of the to a masquerade at the palace of the governor of revellers, into an adjoining room which looked out Cyprus, who usually left his winter residence in upon the gardens, and of which the cooler temperaNicosia, for a more inviting summer dwelling on ture was very refreshing after the heat and confusion the banks of the Mediterranean. I selected an ordi- of the apartments I had left. I was standing by a nary disguise, and on the appointed evening drove to large open window, inhaling the freshness of the outer the house of the governor. The extensive and in-air, when a lady came from the company which I had terminable ranges of rooms were already crowded, deserted, into the room, and approached me. and, if I might judge by the numbers who still momently entered the rooms, the company was still below its intended extent. There is nothing, by the way, more surprising to the native of a young and industrious country, than the fulness in the old and decayed countries of Europe, of the classes of the highest rank in life. In the west, plebeianism is the rule, and nobility the exception; but in Italy and the ancient islands adjacent to it, and in those which lie farther along in the bosom of the Mediterranean, there has been no inducement in the business of life to with. draw the multiplying branches of the noble houses, whom successive dynasties were increasing, from the "It would be transgressing the command of one I bigoted cherishment and maintenance of the claims honor more than life, even to remove it from my of family; and the distinctions of title and the limbs finger. If, to obey your request, would gratify one and twigs of patrician dignity have so spread them-person, I fear it would offend another more, or rather selves among the society of their country, that you can I may say, I hope it would." scarcely offer an alms without insulting a prince, or walk through a market-place without treading on the toes of a count. The multitude, therefore, that the governor had assembled, gave me no suspicions as to their "selectness," for I knew that within hearing of a spirited pop of a champagne cork, there resided a perfect grove of men whose blood was fairly curdled with age.

The rich music floating along the vaulted ceilings of those princely halls, the dazzling lights, the waving scents of flowers, and the gay and varied dresses of the busy throng, all consented to excite the mind with an irresistible spirit of enjoyment. The motley group that flowed noisily through the apartments, presented personations of all the characters of the distant and the past which the most chequered imagination could have assembled together. "Jews, Turks, Heretics and Infidels-Parthians and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia"-all found a representative in this congress of counterfeiters. A turbaned follower of the crescent was making compliments to a bowing and delighted St. Ursula, and a chattering Martin Luther was cracking jokes with a fat St. Francis. A simpering nun was exhibiting the postures of a figurante in conversation with a whiskered Brahmin, and

Sir stranger," said she, “ were it asking more than your courtesy would find it agreeable to grant, to beg an exchange of the trinket you wear upon your finger against another as valuable. I am somewhat curious in rings, and the colors of the one you possess appear to me peculiar."

"Madam," said I," the hand which it adorns or the person it belongs to, are wholly at your service, but the ring is so little my own, that I dare not part with it."

"You will lend it to me, at least, till I may have it copied ?"

And pray, who is this person, whose orders are so inviolable?"

“I would that it were in my power to inform you; but I am so unfortunate in my captivity as not to know what power has enthralled me. I am a slave without a mistress-a worshipper that does not know his goddess."

Methinks it must be a feeble love that thus sustains itself upon the chameleon's food."

The broad and sweeping flame of the forest burns not less potently, because its blindness madly seeks in vain the object which it would attack. Does the soft stream of the moon-rays gush less fully or less richly, because the moving earth it yearns to encom. pass with its glory, is thickly cloaked in clouds? The happier homage that would greet permitting kindness might be wiser than it is, but it could not be warmer."

When the lady who was now conversing with me, first came into the room, I had observed another female figure cautiously approach the door and conceal itself behind the loose hangings which flowed in ample breadth around all the entrances in the building; as she moved towards her hiding-place, I caught a distinct impression of the outline of her form, and there

was that in its peculiar gracefulness and shape which made my heart beat quicker with an instinctive fear. The object of the remarks which were addressed to me, as well as of the concealment which the other sought, flashed upon me in a moment. As soon as the woman who had been speaking to me, turned aside, which she did after a few more observations, the other came from the spot where she had been hidden, and passed along the outer apartment towards a terrace which I knew extended along the side of the house, and by which there was a descent into the garden. I followed her noiselessly, at a distance which prevented myself being seen by her, and observed the course she took. She walked with a hurried step along the portico, and through a bowered walk in the grounds, to a summer-house which was shaded by a circle of shrubbery. She seated herself upon a bench which was fixed against the side of it, and flung off her disguise, and fixing her impassioned gaze upon the moon, which was visible through the trees, she heaved a long, deep sigh, and exclaimed, “He loves me then!" I need not say that it was she whom I had met by the seaside. In a moment I was at her feet, and taking her soft hand in mine, the long-concealed tale of passion was told in winged and burning words.

"I did not know you loved me. At most, I only hoped it possible."

"How could you dream that I could choose but love you? how could you imagine that it was in my power to resist the might of your peculiar loveliness? I have thought of you; I have dreamed of you; there has not been a moment in which your beauty has not stood beside me. For that is love's inalienable boon; the mistress of our life, frown she at distance never so coldly, in our fancy smiles in unchanging tenderness, and fancy is the portal of the heart. Lady! he who now would win your kindness, is one who has felt much of the cheerlessness of a lonely life, and suffered more from the cruelty of selfish men; and to find a heart on which he may repose and fear no alarm—a companionship in which he may hide himself from care, and dread no treachery-is a prospect which spreads over his hopes like the soft and balmy wing of gentle sleep, over the time-fretted eye of the longwatching soldier. The breast that has been stung by the bitter thong of aching disappointment, and torn by the plough-shares of the wildest passions, feels an inexpressible consolation in the promise that the shattered threads of peace shall be knit up in the happiness which waits on thee. When I came to this land, which was once consecrated by the residence of Venus herself, I little dreamed that the blessing which once rained so freely over this clime, would descend so richly upon me. And fuller and deeper, far, than the deepest tale of antique passion will be strength of our devotion. For you, lady, like myself, draw your life from those intense and fiery champions of the north,

of antiquity may not be compared. To the Greek was given an eye; to the Roman, an arm;—an arm of power and an eye of inspiration: upon the blood of the Goth only, doth there float a SOUL!"

There is one beauty of the countenance and another of the figure. The former kindles the fancy to an overmastering blast of wild emotion; but it is only the magic of a rich and faultless form that melts down the gazer's very nature into the powerless prostration of perfect love. I sat upon the step of the little bower, in front of this wondrous pattern of imperial grace, and like an absorbing sea, the swollen waves of resist-with whose impetuous fervor the reasoning ostentation less subjection flowed over my heart. My whole moral being seemed to be dissolved beneath the power of her loveliness, and her image walked over the incense-breathing ruin, in the robes of solitary majesty. As the sun bids every object that it looks upon become an image of itself, and as the coral leaf of cloud that has long floated in clear distinctness, when it touches upon another island of the sky, is no longer to he dis-you wot not of." tinguished in form or color, so did her spirit seem to have changed itself to mine, and in her sweetness was my only consciousness. My soul was hers, and it obeyed her impulses. I had no life beyond her being.

“Oh! why,” said I, “ did you punish me by so long withholding from me permission to renew the feeling pleasure of breathing the gladness of your presence? Half of my existence was wanting in your absence, and it is only at your feet that I renew the fullness of my sense of life."

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And, for this joy, you are willing to brave what lies between the present and that state? There may be dangers to be met, and trials to be endured, that

"He who has baited peril and provoked calamity only to shun the listlessness of life, can think lightly of any terrors that are backed by so fair a prize."

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Place, then, that turquoise upon your finger," and she gave me a stone of extraordinary size and splendor, "and the die is cast, which ensures union or destruction. Prepare for an enemy whose keenest hatred will be concentered on your head."

So saying, she turned down one of the narrow avenues, and left me alone in the garden. [To be continued.]

POETS AND THEIR