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And song has just been floating o'er the waves; The lute is yet within its mistress' hand, Though now the music from its chords is gone To wander o'er the waters, and to perish: Ay, perished long the music of those chords, They had but life from sweetness, so they died. Not so the words!—for, even as the wind, That wafts the seeds which afterwards spring up In a perpetual growth, and then subsides, The song was only minister to words Which have the immortality of pain.

A lady leans upon that silent lute, With large dark eyes, like the eternal night, So spiritual and so melancholy— The exquisite Corinne!

There is a power Given to some minds to fashion and create, Until the being present on the page Is actual as our life's vitality! Such was Corinne—and such the mind that gave Its own existence to its work. Corinne Is but another name for her who wrote, Who felt, and poured her spirit on her lay. What are the feelings but her own? The hope Which in the bleak world finds no resting-place, And, like the dove, returns unsatisfied,