Like sibyls of the future; they have power-
The tyranny of pleasure and of pain:
They make us what we are not--what they will,
And shake us with the vision that's gone by,
The dread of vanish'd shadows-are they so?
Is not the past all shadow ? what are they?
Creations of the mind !-The mind can make
Substance, and people planets of its own
With beings brighter than have been, and give
A breath to forms which can outlive all flesh.
I would recall a vision which I dream'd
Perchance in sleep—for in itself a thought,
A slumbering thought, is capable of years,
And curdles a long life into one hour.

BYRON

COMMUNION WITH NATURE.

Who, when naught is heard around
But the great ocean's solemn sound,
Feels not as if the eternal God
Were speaking in that dread abode ?
An answering voice seems kindly given,
From the multitude of stars in heaven:
And oft a smile of moonlight fair
To perfect peace has changed despair.
Low as we are, we blend our fate
With things so beautifully great;
And, though opprest with heaviest grief,
From nature's bliss we draw relief,
Assured that God's most gracious eye
Beholds us in our misery,
And sends mild sound and lovely sight,
To change that misery to delight.

WILSON

MEMORY

THERE's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream, And the nightingale sings round it all the day

long; In the time of my childhood 't was like a sweet

dream, To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song. That bower and its roses I never forget,

But oft when alone in the bloom of the year, I think,—is the nightingale singing there yet?

Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer! No, the roses soon wither'd that hung o'er the wave, But some blossoms were gather'd while freshly

they shone, And a dew was distill’d from the flowers, that gave All the fragrance of summer, when summer was

gone. Thus memory draws from delight ere it dies,

An essence that breathes of it many a year, Thus bright to my soul, as 't was then to my eyes, Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer.

MOORE.

A CHURCHYARD SCENE.

How sweet and solemn, all alone,
With reverent step, from stone to stone
In a small village churchyard lying,
O'er intervening flowers to move-
And as we read the names unknown,
Of
young

and old, to judgment gone,
And hear, in the calm air above,
Time onwards softly flying,
To meditate in Christian love,
Upon the dead and dying!

Such is the scene around me now:-
A little churchyard on the brow
Of a green pastoral hill;
Its sylvan village sleeps below,
And faintly, here, is heard the flow
Of Woodburn's summer rill;
A place where all things mournful meet,
And, yet, the sweetest of the sweet!
The stillest of the still !

With what a pensive beauty fall
Across the mossy mouldering wall
That rose-tree's cluster'd arches! See
The robin-redbreast, warily,
Bright through the blossoms leave his nest:
Sweet ingrate! through the winter blest
At the firesides of men-but shy
Through all the many summer hours -
He hides himself among the flowers
In his own wild festivity.
What lulling sound, and shadow cool,
Hangs half the darken'd churchyard o'er,
From thy green depths, so beautiful,
Thou gorgeous sycamore!
Oft hath the lowly wine and bread,
Been blest beneath thy murmuring tent;
Where many a bright and hoary head,
Bow'd at that awful sacrament.
Now all beneath the turf are laid,
On which they sat, and sang, and pray’d.
Above that consecrated tree
Ascends the tapering spire, that seems
To lift the soul up silently
To heaven, with all its dreams!
While in the belfry, deep and low,
From his heaved bosom's purple gleams
The dove's continuous murmurs flow,
A dirge-like song,--half bliss, half woe,-
The voice so lonely seems!

WILSON.

RURAL LIFE.

COME, take thy stand upon this gentle ridge,

Which overlooks yon sweet secluded vale; Before us is a rude and rustic bridge,

A simple plank; and by its side a rail On either hand, to guide the footsteps frail

Of first or second childhood : while below
The murmuring brooklet tells its babbling tale,

Like a sweet under-song, which in its flow
It chanteth to the flowers that on its margin grow.

For many a flow'ret blossoms there to bless

The gentle loveliness whose charms imbue Its border ;-strawberry of the wilderness;

The star-like daisy; violet brightly blue; Pale Primrose, in whose cup the pearly dew

Glistens till noontide's languid, listless hour; And last of all, and sweetest to the view,

The lily of the vale, whose virgin flower Trembles at every breeze within its leafy bower.

Now glance thine eye along the streamlet's banks

Up through yon quiet valley; thou wilt trace Above, the giant mountains in their ranks,

Of bald and varied outline; little space Below their summits, far above their base

Umbrageous woods: and last of all, thine eye Will rest on many an humble dwelling-place

Of happy human beings; and descry The lowly temple where they worship the Most

High.

How quietly it stands within the bound

Of its low wall of gray and mossy stone! And like a shepherd's peaceful flock around Its guardian gather'd,-graves, or tombstones

Make their last narrow resting-places known,

Who, living, loved it as a holy spot;
And, dying, made their deep atiachment shown

By wishing here to sleep when life was not,
That so their turf, or stone, might keep them un-

forgot!

It is a bright and balmy afternoon,

Approaching unto eventide ; and all
Is still except that streamlet's placid tune,

Or hum of bees, or lone wood-pigeon's call,
Buried amid embow'ring forest tall,

Which feathers, half-way up, each hill's steep side: Dost thou not feel such landscape's soothing thrall ;

And wish, if not within its bowers t' abide, At least to explore its haunts, and know what joys

they hide?

Nor need'st thou wish a truer luxury

Than in its depths, delighted, thou might'st share ; I will not say that naught of agony,

Blest as it is, at times may harbour there, For man is born to suffer and to bear:

But could I go with thee, from cot to cot, And show thee how this valley's inmates fare,

Thou might'st confess, to live in such a spot, And die there in old age, were no unlovely lot.

BARTON.

LAKE LEMAN.

CLEAR, placid Leman! thy contrasted lake,
With the wild world I dwelt in, is a thing
Which warns me, with its stillness, to forsake
Earth's troubled waters for a purer spring.
This quiet sail is as a noiseless wing