III.

Yet should I free thee much I fear

Thou'dst idly rove,

And thy course, arch betrayer, steer

To him you love.

IV.

And if by him, incautious rover,

As mine thou'rt known,

Each bosom secret thou'dst discover:

I'd guard my own.

V.

Yet go! and shouldst thou near his breast

Still haply view

Thy mistress still its idol guest,

There rest thee too.

VI.

For then each doubting, hoping thrill

Awak'd by thee,

The sweetest certainty shall still

To rest for me.

THE BUTTERFLY.

FRAGMENT XLVII.

CHILD of a sun-beam, airy minion,

Whither points thy flutt'ring pinion?

Pinion dipt in rainbow hues,

Pinion gem'd with sparkling dews

Shed from many a weeping flower,

Bathed in matin's rosy shower;

Tell me why thy form so bland

Still eludes my eager hand?

Tell me, wanton, wouldst thou be

Madly wild, and wildly free?

If freedom is thy life's best treasure,

Then get thee hence, gay child of pleasure,

From feudal tow'r and cloistral cell,

For freedom there did never dwell;

And I no more thy form will woo,

But pleas'd thy varied flight pursue;

And now upon a zephyr's sigh

Thou seem'st in languid trance to die,

Now flutt'ring wild, thy golden winglet

Sports in many a wanton ringlet,

Or soar'st to drink the sun's first gleam,

Or bask thee in the infant beam;

Then panting in thy heaven-snatcht glow,

I feel thee flutt'ring o'er my brow,

Whence thy breezy plumage chases

Each tear the hand of sorrow traces,

Or, as athwart my lip you fly,

Fan away the woe-born sigh,

Ne'er given thee, happy thing, to know;

Thee, whose life a raptured minute

Bears an age of blisses in it;

b This fragment has already appeared in the Novice of St. Dominick, and the above lines are an allusion to the destiny of the heroine.