THE pious man,
In this bad world, when mists and couchant stars
Hide Heaven's fine circlet, springs aloft in fati
Above the clouds that threat him the feits
Of ether, where the day is never veli
With intervening vapours; and inuis dova
Serene upon the troublows sea fat mies
The earth's fair breast, that sea whose nefe: tac:
To grovelling mortals frowns and darkness al:
But on whose billowy back from mar conceal L
The glaring sunbeam plays.
Through my lattice leaf embower'd,
Fair she sheds her shadowy beam,
And o'er my silent sacred room,
Casts a checker'd twilight gloom;
I throw aside the learned sheet,
I cannot choose but gaze, she looks so mildly sweet.
Sad vestal, why art thou so fair,
Or why am I so frail?
Methinks thou lookest kindly on me, Moon,
And cheerest my lone hours with sweet regards; Surely like me thou'rt sad, but dost not speak
Thy sadness to the cold unheeding crowd; So mournfully composed, o'er yonder cloud. Thou shinest, like a cresset, beaming far From the rude watch-tower, o'er the Atlantic wave.
O GIVE me music-for my soul doth faint;
I'm sick of noise and care; and now mine ear
Longs for some air of peace, some dying plaint,
That may the spirit from its cell unsphere.
Hark how it falls! and now it steals along,
Like distant bells upon the lake at eve,
When all is still; and now it grows more strong,
As when the choral train their dirges weave,
Mellow and many-voiced; where every close,
O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves reflows. Oh! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars
Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind. Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,
And floating pæans fill the buoyant wind. Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed, Far from its clayey cell it springs,——
**
AH! who can say, however fair his view,
Through what sad scenes his path may lie?
Ah! who can give to others' woes his sigh,
Secure his own will never need it too?
Let thoughtless youth its seeming joys pursue,
Soon will they learn to scan with thoughtful eye
The illusive past and dark futurity;
Soon will they know-
AND must thou go, and must we part?
Yes, Fate decrees, and I submit ;
pang that rends in twain my heart,
Oh, Fanny, dost thou share in it?
Thy sex is fickle,—when away,
Some happier youth may win thy
SONNET.
WHEN I sit musing on the checker'd past,
(A term much darken'd with untimely woes),
My thoughts revert to her, for whom still flows
The tear, though half disown'd;-and binding fast
Pride's stubborn cheat to my too yielding heart,
I say to her she robb'd me of my rest,
When that was all my wealth.-'Tis true my breast
Received from her this wearying, lingering smart,
Yet, ah! I cannot bid her form depart;
Though wrong'd, I love her-yet in anger love,
For she was most unworthy.-Then I prove
Vindictive joy; and on my stern front gleams,
Throned in dark clouds, inflexible
The native pride of my much injured heart.
*
*
WHEN high romance o'er every wood and stream
Dark lustre shed, my infant mind to fire,
Spell-struck, and fill'd with many a wondering dream,
First in the groves I woke the pensive lyre;
All there was mystery then, the gust that woke
The midnight echo with a spirit's dirge,
And unseen fairies would the moon invoke,
To their light morrice by the restless surge.
Now to my sober'd thought with life's false smiles,
Too much
The vagrant fancy spreads no more her wiles,
And dark forebodings now my bosom fill,
HUSA'D is the lyre-the hand that swept
The low and pensive wires,
Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.
Yes it is still the lyre is still ;
The spirit which its slumbers broke
Hath passed away, and that weak hand that woke Its forest melodies hath lost its skill.
Yet I would press you to my lips once more,
Ye wild, ye withering flowers of poesy;
Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour,
Mix'd with decaying odours; for to me
Ye have beguiled the hours of infancy,
As in the wood-paths of my native-
ONCE more, and yet once more,
I give unto my harp a dark-woven lay; I heard the waters roar,
I heard the flood of ages pass away.
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