My days among the dead are pass'd;
Around me I behold,
Where'er these casual eyes are cast,
The mighty minds of old:
My never-failing friends are they,
With whom I converse day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the dead; with them
I live in long past years;
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with a humble mind.
My hopes are with the dead; anon
My place with them will be;
And I with them shall travel on
Through all futurity :
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
OH! for that sweet untroubled rest,
That poets oft have sung;
Like babe's upon its mother's breast,
Or bird's upon its young;
The heart asleep, without a pain :
When shall I sleep that sleep again?
When shall I be as I have been,
Upon my mother's breast-
Sweet Nature's garb of emerald green—
To woo my form to rest;
Lone in the meadow, field and glen,
And in my native wilds again?
The sheep within the fallow field,
The herd upon the green,
The larks that in the thistles shield,
And pipe from morn to e'en;
Oh! for the pasture, field, and fen!
When shall I feel such rest again?
The crows upon the swelling hills,
The cows upon the lea,
Sheep feeding by the pasture rills,
Are ever dear to me;
Because sweet freedom is their mate,-
While I am lorn and desolate.
I loved the winds when I was young,
When life was dear to me;
I loved the song which Nature sung—
Enduring liberty;
I loved the woods, the gales, the stream, For there my boyhood used to dream.
There, toil itself was ever play,
'Twas pleasure e'en to weep; "Twas joy to think of dreams by dayThe beautiful of sleep.
When shall I see the wood, the plain,
And dream those happy dreams again?
What the heart of the young man said to the Psalmist.
PROFESSOR LONGFELLOW.
TELL me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers:
And things are not what they seem.
Life is real life is earnest !
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest!
Was not spoken of the soul.
Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each tomorrow
Find us farther than to-day.
Art is long, and time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave, Still, like muffled drums, are beating Funeral marches to the grave.
In the world's broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!
Trust no future, howe'er pleasant !
Let the dead past bury its dead!
Act, act in the living present!
Heart within, and God o'erhead!
Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime, And, departing, leave behind us Footprints in the sands of time;
Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o'er life's solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwreck'd brother
Seeing, shall take heart again.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labour and to wait.
BREATHES there the man with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd
As home his footsteps he hath turn'd,
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell!
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim :
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concenter'd all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonour'd, and unsung.
O Caledonia! stern and wild,
Meet nurse for a poetic child!
Land of brown heath and shaggy wood,
Land of the mountain and the flood,
Land of my sires, what mortal hand
Can e'er untie the filial band
That knits me to thy rugged strand ?
Still, as I view each well-known scene,
Think what is now, and what hath been,
Seems as, to me, of all bereft,
Sole friends thy woods and streams were left;
And thus I love them better still,
Even in extremity of ill.
By Yarrow's stream still let me stray,
Though none should guide my feeble way;
Still feel the breeze down Ettrick break,
Although it chill my wither'd cheek;
Still lay my head by Teviot stone,
Though there, forgotten and alone,
The bard may draw his parting groan.
THE BRITISH FLAG.
"Thank God! I am a Briton."-NELSON.
THOUGH Nelson's name hath fled,
Like a dirge along the deep,
Where the old heroic dead
In their ocean glory sleep!
Is the lion-flag of England's triumph o'er?
No! where'er oppression raves,
Still that flag the battle braves;
And Britannia rules the waves,
As of yore!
For freedom long she bled,
And her treasure widely cast,
'Till slavery bow'd its head
As her victor pennant pass'd:
And the chains of Afric fell at her decree!
While the shout of millions broke
From Oppression's shatter'd yoke,
As Britannia bravely spoke-
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