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THE MARRIAGE OF TRUE MINDS.[1]
"Endure and dare, true heart, through Patience joined
With boldness come we at a Crown enriched
With thousand blessings."—From the Spanish of Argensolas.

I.

AGNES AT HER WINDOW.

My window looks upon a dead blank wall,
Yet flowers that grow beyond are kind, and send—
As friend might soothingly to prisoned friend—
Their kisses blown upon the wind, to call
A summer round me in my cell, where all
Breathes of the rose and jessamine that blend;

  1. The annals of the heart are rich and various, extending over a wide region, yet it would be hard, among all its written or traditionary wealth, to find a sweeter true-love story than that contained in the lyrical autobiography of Vieira, the Lusitaniayi, the famous painter and faithful husband. This poem, which was given to the world at the age of eighty-one, three years before the author's death, is so remarkable in all respects, as to have been considered by Southey the best book Portugal has to boast of. It is full of extraordinary incident, and celebrates the passion which, beginning before either of the lovers was eight years old, forms, in its mutual strength and constancy, at once the marvel and the glory of the two lives it bound together.—See on this subject an article in Blackwood's Magazine for March 1851, "The Fine Arts in Portugal."