He suffer'd, but his pangs are o'er; Had friends, his friends are now no more; He loved, but whom he loved, the grave He saw whatever thou hast seen; Encounter'd all that troubles thee; He was whatever thou hast been; He is what thou shalt be. The rolling seasons, day and night, The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye The annals of the human race, Till all the air around Mysterious murmurs fill, A strange bewildering dream of sound, O! snatch the Harp from Sorrow's hand, Of vanish'd troubles sing, Of fears for ever fled, Of flowers that hear the voice of Spring, Of home, contentment, health, repose, And everlasting as his truth: Sing, heavenly Hope!-and dart thine hand Ah! then, this gloom control, THE HARP OF SORROW. I GAVE my Harp to Sorrow's hand, Of dear, departed hours, Too fondly loved to last, The dew, the breath, the bloom of flowers, Of long, long years of future care, Beyond the judgment-day of death :— The weeping Minstrel sings, And, while her numbers flow, Would gladness move a sprightlier strain, And yet, to soothe the mind With luxury of grief, The soul to suffering all resign'd Thus o'er the light Æolian lyre The winds of dark November stray, Touch the quick nerve of every wire, And on its magic pulses play; POPE'S WILLOW. Verses written for an Urn, made out of the trunk of the Weeping Willow, imported from the East, and planted by Popa in his grounds at Twickenham, where it flourished many years; but, falling into decay, it was lately cut down. ERE POPE resign'd his tuneful breath, Long as revolving seasons flew, From youth to age it flourish'd; Old Time beheld his silvery head The breezy lawn embowering, Thither, at summer noon, he view'd With songs their Poet greeting, Whose spirit in the Willow spoke, Like Jove's from dark Dodona's oak. By harvest moonlight there he spied One morn, while Time thus mark'd the tree In beauty green and glorious, The hand," he cried, "that planted thee O'er mine was oft victorious; Be vengeance now my calm employ,One work of POPE'S I will destroy." He spake, and struck a silent blow With that dread arm whose motion Lays cedars, thrones, and temples low, And wields o'er land and ocean The unremitting ax of doom, That fells the forest of the tomb. Deep to the Willow's root it went, In vain did Spring those bowers restore, Hoary, and weak, and bent with age, At length the ax assail'd it: It bow'd before the woodman's rage; -The swans of Thames bewail'd it. With softer tones, with sweeter breath, Than ever charm'd the ear of death. O PorE! hadst thou, whose lyre so long This Weeping Willow planted; Thy chosen Tree had stood sublime, An humbler lot, O Tree! was thine, Though verse like mine in vain would raise In rustic solitude 't is sweet The strawberry, creeping at our feet, Wherefore I love the walks of Spring,- Joy flits on every roving wing, That morn I look'd and listen'd long, To welcome, with remembrance strong When gathering flowers, an eager child, Peep'd breathless through the copse, and smiled Already had I watch'd the flight Of swallows darting through the light, Now in my walk, with sweet surprise. Lone on a mossy bank it grew, Where lichens, purple, white, and blue, Its yellow ringlets, dropping dew, A bee had nestled on its blooms, He shook abroad their rich perfumes, O, welcome, as a friend! I cried, A friend through many a season tried, When May. with Flora at her side, Sure as the Pleiades adorn In calm delicious hours, Beneath their beams thy buds are born, 'Midst love-awakening showers. Scatter'd by Nature's graceful hand, In briery glens, o'er pasture-land, Thy fairy tribes we meet; Gay in the milk-maid's path they stand, They kiss her tripping feet. From winter's farm-yard bondage freed, The cattle bounding o'er the mead, Where green the herbage grows, Tossing his forelock o'er his mane, Where thick thy primrose blossoms play, O'er coppice lawns and dells, In bands the rural children stray, To pluck thy nectar'd bells; Whose simple sweets, with curious skill, Nor envy France the vine, The dawn of lengthening days. Thy self-renewing race Have breathed their balmy lives away And O, till Nature's final doom, This bank their cradle and their tomb, Yet, lowly Cowslip, while in thee This fading eye and withering mien Then fields and woods I proudly spurn'd, Cold was my wretched heart,- Sick of the world,-I turn'd my face "T was Spring;-my former haunts I found, The mountains were with sun-set crown'd, The valleys dun with shade. With lorn delight the scene I view'd, And still, in Memory's twilight bowers, With mellowing tints, portray Till youth's delirious dream is o'er, In age, when error charms no more, A DEED OF DARKNESS. The body of the Missionary, John Smith, (who died February 6, 1824, in prison, under sentence of death by a court-martial, in Demerara), was ordered to be buried secretly at night, and no person, not even his widow, was allowed to follow the corpse. Mrs. Smith, however, and her friend Mrs. Elliot, aecompanied by a free Negro, carrying a lantern, repaired beforehand to the spot where a grave had been dug, and there they awaited the interment, which took place accordingly. His Majesty's pardon, annulling the condemnation, is said to have arrived on the day of the unfortunate Missionary's death, from the rigors of confinement, in a tropical climate, and under the slow pains of an inveterate malady, previously afflicting him. COME down in thy profoundest gloom, Beneath thine ebon arch entomb Earth, from the gaze of Heaven, O Night! A deed of darkness must be done, Put out the moon, hold back the sun. Are these the criminals, that flee Like deeper shadows through the shade? A flickering lamp, from tree to tree, Betrays their path along the glade, A grave, an open grave, appears ; Wet the fresh turf with bitter tears; Sighs following sighs their bosoms rend: These are not murderers!-these have known Grief more bereaving than their own. Oft through the gloom their straining eyes A stern procession!-gleaming arms, And withering pangs through either heart; Not by the slave-lord's justice slain, Who doom'd him to a traitor's death; While royal mercy sped in vain O'er land and sea to save his breath: No; the frail life that warm'd this clay, Man could not give nor take away. His vengeance and his grace, alike, Were impotent to spare or kill; -He may not lift the sword to strike, Nor turn its edge aside, at will: Here, by one sovereign act and deed, God cancell'd all that man decreed. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, That corpse is to the grave consign'd; The scene departs-this buried trust, The Judge of quick and dead shall find, When things which Time and Death have seal'd Shall be in flaming fire reveal'd. The fire shall try Thee, then, like gold, Prisoner of hope!-await the test; And O, when truth alone is told, Be thy clear innocence confess'd! The fire shall try thy foes-may they Find mercy in that dreadful day. THE SWISS COWHERD'S SONG, IN A FOREIGN LAND. Imitated from the French. O, WHEN shall I visit the land of my birth, With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore ? O, when shall I dance on the daisy-white mead, My sister, my brother, And dear Isabella, the joy of them all? O, when shall I visit the land of my birth! 'Tis the loveliest land on the face of the earth THE OAK. Imitated from the Italian of Metastasio. THE tall Oak, towering to the skies, THE DIAL. THIS shadow on the Dial's face, What is it?-Mortal Man! Yet, in its calm career, It levels all beneath the sky; And still, through each succeeding year And Time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun Nor only o'er the Dial's face, This silent phantom, day by day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Steals moments, months, and years away; From hoary rock and aged tree, From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls, From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea, From every blade of grass it falls. For still, where'er a shadow sweeps, The scythe of Time destroys, And man at every footstep weeps O'er evanescent joys; Like flow'rets glittering with the dews of morn I too shall lie in dust and darkness low. Then Time, the Conqueror, will suspend His scythe, a trophy, o'er my tomb, Whose moving shadow shall portend Each frail beholder's doom. O'er the wide earth's illumined space, Though Time's triumphant flight be shown, The truest index on its face Points from the church-yard stone. THE ROSES. Addressed to a Friend on the Birth of his first Child. Two Roses on one slender spray, In sweet communion grew, Together hail'd the morning ray, And drank the evening dew; While, sweetly wreathed in mossy green, Through clouds and sunshine, storms and showers, Mingling their foliage and their flowers, Their beauty and perfume; But soon their summer splendor pass'd, Yet were these roses to the last The loveliest of their kind, When thus were all their honors shorn, And blush'd and brighten'd, as the morn My Friends! in youth's romantic prime, Then be your breasts as free from cares, And in the infant bud that blows In your encircling arms. Mark the dear promise of a rose, That o'er your withering hours shall shine, Till, planted in that realm of rest Amidst the gardens of the blest, You flower afresh, like Aaron's rod, TO AGNES. Reply to some Lines, beginning, "Arrest, O Time, thy fleeting course." TIME will not check his eager flight, Though gentle Agnes scold, For 't is the Sage's dear delight To make vorne ladies old. |