XI.

    Yet my fond love I never told, But kept it, as the miser¹ keeps, In his rude hut, his hoarded² heaps Of gleaming gems³, and glittering gold： Gloating in secret o'er the prize, He fears to show to other eyes； And so passed many months away, Till once I heard a comrade say：—— "To-morrow brings her bridal day； Mazelli leaves the greenwood bower⁴, Where she has grown its fairest flower, To bless, with her bright, sunny smile, A stranger from a distant isle⁵, Whom love has lured⁶ across the sea, O'er hill and glen, through wood and wild, Far from his lordly home, to be Lord of the forest's fairest child." It was as when a thunder peal⁷ Bursts, crashing from a cloudless sky, It caused my brain and heart to reel And throb⁸, with speechless agony： Yet, when wild Passion's trance was o'er, And Thought resumed her sway once more, I breathed a prayer that she might be Saved from the pangs⁹ that tortured me；

    That her young heart might never prove The sting of unrequited love.

    My task I then again began, But ah！ how much an altered man,—— A single hour, a few hot tears, Had done the wasting work of years.