No iron-crackling now is scored, Though certain Doctors will pretend Farewell, then, ancient men of might! THOMAS HOOD. A PRISONER'S CONTRAST. THE light is disappearing through the dim, In full effulgence o'er a cloudless sky Pour'd his last flood of brightness: the brown hills, The aloe hedge, the rhododendron wild, The golden orange, and the purple grape, All seemed as clothed in light; and now tis gone! The God of day is vanish'd: a low bell All tongues are whispering prayer and thanks to heaven! And aged grandsires with young hearts behold LORD JOHN RUSSELL. THE MUSIC OF NATURE. THE joyous birds shrouded in cheareful shade, Now soft, now loud, unto the wind did call; SPENSER. WE MIGHT HAVE BEEN! WE might have been !—these are but common words, We might have been ! We might have been so happy, says the child, We might have been ! It is the thought that darkens on our youth, And what few truths endeavour ever reaches. We might have been! Alas! how different from what we are, Had we but known the bitter path before us; But feeling, hopes, and fancies, left afar, What in the wide bleak world can e'er restore us? We might have been! It is the motto of all human things,— The end of all that waits on mortal seeking; And when warm with the Heaven that gave it birth, Dawns on our world-worn way Love's hour Elysium, The last fair angel lingering on our earth, The shadow of that thought obscures the vision, We might have been! A cold fatality attends on love, Too soon, or else too late, the heart-beat quickens ; The star which is our fate springs up above, And we but say—while round the vapour thickens― We might have been ! Life knoweth no like misery,-the rest Are single sorrows,-but in this are blended All sweet emotions that disturb the breast: The light that was our loveliest is ended. We might have been! Henceforth how much of the full heart must be A still voice mutters, 'mid our misery, The worst to hear-because it must dissemble Life is made up of miserable hours; And all of which we craved a brief possessing, For which we wasted wishes, hopes, and powers, Comes with some fatal drawback on the blessing. We might have been ! The future never renders to the past The young beliefs intrusted to its keeping. Inscribe one sentence-life's first truth, and last,On the pale marble where our dust is sleeping— We might have been! L. E. L. THE SWALLOWS. CAPTIVE On the Moorish strand, He saw come fiying o'er the main. "Tell me, ye birds of hope!" he cried, Ye saw my France in summer's pride,— "Three years-three sad years, alas! I've linger'd here, a weary slave !— Denizens of air! ye pass Unrestrained o'er earth and wave! |