Mazelli, and Other Poems (Canto1,11)

XI.

    Yet my fond love I never told, But kept it, as the miser keeps, In his rude hut, his hoarded heaps Of gleaming gems, 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 bower, Where she has grown its fairest flower, To bless, with her bright, sunny smile, A stranger from a distant isle, Whom love has lured 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 peal Bursts, crashing from a cloudless sky, It caused my brain and heart to reel And throb, 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 pangs 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.