But if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn; O soothe him whose pleasures like thine pass away. Full quickly they pass-but they never return.
"Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky,
The moon half extinguish'd her crescent displays :
But lately I mark'd, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendour again :
But Man's faded glory what change shall renew?
Ah! fool to exult in a glory so vain!
""Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn, but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfum'd with fresh fragrance, and glittering with dew.
Nor yet for the ravage of Winter I mourn;
Kind Nature the embryo blossom will save,
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn?
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave?"
'Twas thus, by the glare of false Science betray'd,
That leads, to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind;
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to shade,
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind,
"O pity, great Father of light," then I cried,
Thy creature who fain would not wander from Thee! Lo, humbled in dust, I relinquish my pride:
From doubt and from darkness thou only canst free."
And darkness and doubt are now flying away :
No longer I roam in conjecture forlorn :
So breaks on the traveller, faint, and astray,
The bright and the balmy effulgence of morn :
See Truth, Love, and Mercy, in triumph descending,
And Nature all glowing in Eden's first bloom!
On the cold cheek of Death smiles and roses are blending,
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb.
LOVE'S IMMORTALITY.
THEY sin who tell us love can die :
With life all other passions fly,—
All others are but vanity.
In heaven Ambition cannot dwell,
Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell.
Earthly those passions of the earth,—
They perish where they have their birth-
But love is indestructible;
Its holy flame for ever burneth.
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth.
Too oft on earth a troubled guest:
At times received, at times oppress'd;
It here is tried and purified,
Then hath, in heaven, its purest rest.
THE Frost looked forth one still clear night,
And he said, "Now I shall be out of sight,
So through the valley, and over the height,
In silence I'll take my way.
"I will not go on like the blustering train,
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain,
Who make so much bustle and noise in vain,
But I'll be as busy as they."
Then he went to the mountain and powdered its crest, He climbed up the trees, and their boughs he drest With diamonds and pearls, and over the breast
Of the quivering lake he spread
A coat of mail, that it could not fear
The downward point of many a spear,
That he hung on the margin far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.
He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over each pane like a fairy crept;
Wherever he breathed, wherever he stept
By the light of the moon were seen
Most beautiful things; there were flowers and trees,
There were bevies of birds and swarms of bees;
There were cities, thrones, temples, and towns, and these
All pictured in silver sheen.
But he did one thing that was hardly fair,
He went to the cupboard, and finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare,
"Now just to set them thinking,
I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he,
"This bloated pitcher I'll burst in three,
And the glass of water they've left for me,
Shall crack to tell I've been drinking!"
AUTHORS AND THEIR IMITATORS.
THEY cannot read, and so don't lisp in criticism
Nor write, and so they don't affect the muse;
Were never caught in epigram or witticism,
Have no romances, sermons, plays, reviews :-
In harams learning soon would make a pretty schism!
But luckily these beauties are no
"blues ;"
No bustling Botherby's they have to show 'em
"That charming passage in the last new poem."
No solemn, antique gentleman of rhyme,
Who having angled all his life for fame,
And getting but a nibble at a time,
Still fussily keeps fishing on, the same
Small Triton of the minnows," the sublime
Of mediocrity, the furious tame,
The echo's echo, usher of the school
Of female wits, boy bards-in short, a fool!
A talking oracle of awful phase,
The approving "Good!" (by no means good in law) Humming like flies around the newest blaze,
The bluest of blue bottles
you e'er saw,
Teasing with blame, excruciating with praise,
Gorging the little fame he gets all raw,
Translating tongues he knows not even by letter,
And sweating plays so middling bad were better.
One hates an author that's all author; fellows
In foolscap uniforms, turn'd up with ink,
So very anxious, clever, fine, and jealous,
One don't know what to say to them, or think
Unless to puff them with a pair of bellows;
Of coxcombry's worst coxcombs e'en the pink
Are preferable to these shreds of paper,
These unquench'd snuffings of the midnight taper.
Of these same we see several, and of others,
Men of the world who know the world like men, Scott, Rogers, Moore, and all the better brothers, Who think of something else beside the pen;
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