Chapter 3

ALONE, AND READING A BOOK.

A tale of happy love! 'Tis like my fate. Two youthful beings, yearning each for love, Met by a haunted stream, with ivied banks, Beneath the evening star--the star of love. Their souls fled to each other suddenly: So that they felt they were ordained of old, To twain be one, one flesh, one bone, one soul. They loved, and dwelt among the grassy hills, By lakes that mirrored all their trees and flowers. A happy life, and curly-headed boys Were round their steps, their walks, their cottage door, Filling the air with laughter, silvery sweet. Gay spring, bright summer, autumn, winter passed, And found and left them happy, So time flew, Till both were old, their hearts yet light and gay. Then, they slept sweetly, side by side, near by A favorite stream they oft had gazed upon, Meek christians said they hoped that love so rare Had full fruition found, in brighter worlds. It is a happy story, and my eyes, Have poured their pearl upon these pages here, That tell so dear a tale. Oh! God be praised, If such a fate befall my love and me. I will go seek Odora, and return To talk with her amid this fragrant bower, Of what a book has charmed my sighing soul. I found it here. Perchance she read it first. How that one thought which doth fill up the mind, Will color outward objects, circumstance, And accident, with tincture of itself.

_He goes--then Odora and he re-enter the garden._

LOVER SPEAKS.--I here have found, Odora, love, this book, Which tells a strange, sweet tale of happy love, How two young beings found a heaven on earth, Cans't tell me, whence it came, if fact or dream?

ODORA SPEAKS.--It is a happy story. In my father's room Of precious volumes late I fell on this; And read it in this garden; sweet romance, It brought the love-beats to my heart, drops to mine eyes.