THREE HOURS ON THE DIAL OF A RHAPSODIST.

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ing; whisper your love into his ear, bring his soul back to joy:he needs all your assurances to restore him. There ! now, fare-well ! an irresistible agency calls me away; my thread of life,I seem to feel, is severed with the broken crystal. When Ifirst looked upon its mocking surface, I saw reflected there theseer by whose forbidden thirst for knowledge its mystic influencewas evoked; now it is shattered! yet, let me whisper it to you,the same scene stands before me still! This chamber seemsnot mine, it is darkened, old with the unhallowed deeds of a longpast time. See ! through the casement a tower rises in themiddle of the lake !—a light gleams within the turret! There !do you not see ? ”

“ Oh, De Grey, calm yourself! there is nothing but yourown fantasy : the moon glimmers through the heavy clouds : notower, no turret is there.” With consoling earnestness, thelovers twined their arms around him, and with passionateentreaties implored him to compose himself: he threw themwildly off.

“ I am called! ” he vociferated. “ Do you not hear his

voice ? He summons me,— I must away ! You mark him not ?A little humpbacked man, pale, and with long beard. Hebeckons again ! Ah ! now he threatens, with his arms extended,raised as if to curse. I come ! no force can bind me from him.I come ! I come !”

A plunge ! and the cavern of the waters opened, foamed foran instant in the whirl and eddy of their surge, then smiledaway their wrath in softened circles, and flowed on ! The tiredheart, the maddened spirit, the wild, tumultuous agony of life’scorroding care, buried in the dark abysses, as the grown barkconceals the broken barb! A fitful w'ail fell on the maiden’sear— a glance true, even in life’s parting hour, was on her soul;and twining his arm around her, the lover and his adored stoodbeneath the moonbeam, glistening on the flowing river, silentand alone!