Till death like sleep might steal on me,
And I might feel in the warni air
My cheek grow cold, and hear the sea
Breathe o'er my dying brain its last monotony.
[Missolonghi, January 23, 1824. On this day I completed my thirty-sixth year.]
"T is time this heart should be unmoved,
Since others it has ceased to move;
Yet, though I cannot be beloved,
Still let me love.
My days are in the yellow leaf,
The flowers and fruits of love are gone,
The worm, the canker, and the grief,
Are mine alone.
The fire that in my bosom preys
Is like to some volcanic isle,
No torch is kindled at its blaze,
The hope, the fear, the jealous care,
The exalted portion of the pain
And power of love, I cannot share,
But wear the chain.
But 't is not here, - it is not here,
When the stranger seemed to mark our play,
Some of us were joyous, some sad-hearted,
Such thoughts should shake my soul, nor now I remember well, too well, that day!
Where glory seals the hero's bier,
Or binds his brow.
Oftentimes the tears unbidden started
Would not stay
When the stranger seemed to mark our play.
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell,
O, to me her name was always Heaven! She besought him all his grief to tell, (I was then thirteen, and she eleven,)
One sweet spirit broke the silent spell.
"Angel," said, he sadly, "I am old;
Earthly hope no longer hath a morrow;
Yet, why I sit here thou shalt be told."
Then his eye betrayed a pearl of sorrow,
Down it rolled !
"Angel," said he sadly, "I am old.
"I have tottered-here to look once more
On the pleasant scene where I delighted
In the careless, happy days of yore,
Ere the garden of my heart was blighted
To the core:
I have tottered here to look once more.
"All the picture now to me how dear!
E'en this gray old rock where I am seated,
Is a jewel worth my journey here;
Ah that such a scene must be completed With a tear!
All the picture now to me how dear!
"Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky, Tracing silently life's changeful story, So familiar to my dim old eye,
Points me to seven that are now in glory There on high!
"Oft the aisle of that old church we trod,
"Old stone school-house! - it is still the same; Yon white spire, a pencil on the sky.
There's the very step I so oft mounted;
There's the window creaking in its frame,
And the notches that I cut and counted
For the game.
Old stone school-house, it is still the same.
"In the cottage yonder I was born ;
Long my happy home, that humble dwelling; There the fields of clover, wheat, and corn; There the spring with limpid nectar swelling; Ah, forlorn!
In the cottage yonder I was born.
"Those two gateway sycamores you see
Then were planted just so far asunder
That long well-pole from the path to free,
And the wagon to pass safely under;
Ninety-three!
Those two gateway sycamores you see.
"There's the orchard where we used to climb
When my mates and I were boys together,
Thinking nothing of the flight of time,
Fearing naught but work and rainy weather;
Past its prime !
There's the orchard where we used to climb.
"There the rude, three-cornered chestnut-rails, Round the pasture where the flocks were grazing, Where, so sly, I used to watch for quails
In the crops of buckwheat we were raising; Traps and trails!
There the rude, three-cornered chestnut-rails.
"There's the mill that ground our yellow grain; Pond and river still serenely flowing;
Cot there nestling in the shaded lane,
Where the lily of my heart was blowing.
Mary Jane!
There's the mill that ground our yellow grain.
"There's the gate on which I used to swing, Brook, and bridge, and barn, and old red stable; But alas! no more the morn shall bring
That dear group around my father's table;
Taken wing!
There's the gate on which I used to swing.
"I am fleeing, all I loved have fled.
Yon green meadow was our place for playing; That old tree can tell of sweet things said When around it Jane and I were straying; She is dead!
I am fleeing, all I loved have fled.
Guided thither by an angel mother;
Now she sleeps beneath its sacred sod;
Sire and sisters, and my little brother,
Gone to God!
Oft the aisle of that old church we trod.
"There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways;
Bless the holy lesson!-but, ah, never
Shall I hear again those songs of praise,
Those sweet voices silent now forever!
Peaceful days!
There I heard of Wisdom's pleasant ways.
"There my Mary blest me with her hand
When our souls drank in the nuptial blessing,
Ere she hastened to the spirit-land,
Yonder turf her gentle bosom pressing;
Broken band!
There my Mary blest me with her hand.
AFAR in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
When the sorrows of life the soul o'ercast,
And, sick of the present, I cling to the past;
When the eye is suffused with regretful tears,
From the fond recollections of former years;
And shadows of things that have long since fled
Flit over the brain, like the ghosts of the dead,
Bright visions of glory that vanished too soon;
Day-dreams, that departed ere manhood's noon;
Attachments by fate or falsehood reft;
Companions of early days lost or left,
And my native land, whose magical name
Thrills to the heart like electric flame;
The proud man's frown, and the base man's | Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root,
The scorner's laugh, and the sufferer's tear, And malice, and meanness, and falsehood, and folly,
Dispose me to musing and dark melancholy; When my bosom is full, and my thoughts are high,
And my soul is sick with the bondman's sigh,
O, then there is freedom, and joy, and pride,
Afar in the desert alone to ride!
There is rapture to vault on the champing steed,
And to bound away with the eagle's speed,
With the death-fraught firelock in my hand,
The only law of the Desert Land!
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
Away, away from the dwellings of men,
By the wild deer's haunt, by the buffalo's glen;
By valleys remote where the oribi plays,
Where the gnu, the gazelle, and the hartebeest
And the kudu and eland unhunted recline
Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot;
And the bitter-melon, for food and drink,
Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink;
A region of drought, where no river glides,
Nor rippling brook with osiered sides;
Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount,
Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount,
Appears, to refresh the aching eye;
But the barren earth and the burning sky,
And the blank horizon, round and round,
Spread, void of living sight or sound.
And here, while the night-winds round me sigh,
And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky,
As I sit apart by the desert stone,
Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone,
"A still small voice" comes through the wild
(Like a father consoling his fretful child),
Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear,
Saying, ― Man is distant, but God is near !
By the skirts of gray forest o'erhung with wild SELECTIONS FROM "PARADISE LOST."
Where the elephant browses at peace in his wood, And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood, And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will
O UNEXPECTED stroke, worse than of death! Must I thus leave thee, Paradise? thus leave
In the fen where the wild ass is drinking his Thee, native soil! these happy walks and shades,
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry
Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively;
And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neigh
Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray;
Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane,
With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain;
And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste
Speeds like a horseman who travels in haste,
Hieing away to the home of her rest,
Where she and her mate have scooped their nest,
Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view
In the pathless depths of the parched karroo.
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side,
Away, away, in the wilderness vast
Where the white man's foot hath never passed,
And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan
Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan,
A region of emptiness, howling and drear,
Fit haunt of gods? where I had hope to spend,
Quiet, though sad, the respite of that day
That must be mortal to us both. O flowers,
That never will in other climate grow,
My early visitation, and my last
At even, which I bred up with tender hand
From the first opening bud, and gave ye names!
Who now shall rear ye to the sun, or rank
Your tribes, and water from the ambrosial fount!
Thee, lastly, nuptial bower! by me adorned
With what to sight or smell was sweet, from
thee
How shall I part, and whither wander down
Into a lower world, to this obscure
And wild? how shall we breathe in other air
Less pure, accustomed to immortal fruits?
THE DEPARTURE FROM PARADISE.
Thy message, which might else in telling wound,
And in performing end us. What besides
Of sorrow, and dejection, and despair
Which man hath abandoned from famine and Our frailty can sustain, thy tidings bring;
Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone, With the twilight bat from the yawning stone;
Departure from this happy place, our sweet Recess, and only consolation left,
Familiar to our eyes, all places else
Inhospitable appear and desolate,
Nor knowing us nor known; and if by prayer
Incessant I could hope to change the will
Of Him who all things can, I would not cease
To weary him with my assiduous cries.
But prayer against his absolute decree
No more avails than breath against the wind,
Blown stifling back on him that breathes it forth;
Therefore to his great bidding I submit.
This most afflicts me, that, departing hence,
As from his face I shall be hid, deprived
His blessed countenance, here I could frequent
With worship place by place where he
IN either hand the hastening angel caught
Our lingering parents, and to the eastern gate
Led them direct, and down the cliff as fast
To the subjected plain; then disappeared.
They, looking back, all the eastern side beheld
Waved over by that flaming brand; the gate
Of Paradise, so late their happy seat,
With dreadful faces thronged and fiery arms.
Some natural tears they dropt, but wiped them
The world was all before them, where to choose
vouch-Their place of rest, and Providence their guide. They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and
Presence divine, and to my sons relate,
On this mount he appeared; under this tree
Stood visible; among these pines his voice
I heard; here with him at this fountain talked :
So many grateful altars I would rear
Of grassy turf, and pile up every stone
Of lustre from the brook, in memory
Or monument to ages, and thereon
Offersweet-smelling gums, and fruits, and flowers.
In yonder nether world where shall I seek
His bright appearances, or footstep trace?
For though I fled him angry, yet, recalled
To life prolonged and promised race, I now
Gladly behold though but his utmost skirts
Of glory, and far off his steps adore.
Henceforth I learn that to obey is best,
And love with fear the only God, to walk
As in his presence, ever to observe
His providence, and on him sole depend,
Merciful over all his works, with good
Still overcoming evil, and by small
KENT. Did your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?
GENTLEMAN. Ay, sir; she took them, read them in my presence;
And now and then an ample tear trilled down Her delicate cheek, it seemed she was a queen Over her passion; who, most rebel-like, Sought to be king o'er her.
KENT. O, then it moved her. GENT. Not to a rage: patience and sorrow strove Who should express her goodliest. You have seen Sunshine and rain at once; her smiles and tears Were like a better way: those happy smilets, That played on her ripe lip, seemed not to know
Accomplishing great things, by things deemed What guests were in her eyes; which parted thence,
Subverting worldly strong and worldly wise
By simply meek; that suffering for truth's sake
Is fortitude to highest victory,
And to the faithful death the gate of life:
Taught this by his example, whom I now
Acknowledge my Redeemer ever blest.
As pearls from diamonds dropped. — In brief.
WITH Sorrow and heart's distress
Wearied, I fell asleep. But now lead on;
In me is no delay; with thee to go,
Is to stay here; without thee here to stay,
Is to go hence unwilling; thou to me
Art all things under heaven, all places thou,
Who for my wilful crime art banished hence.
This further consolation, yet secure,
I carry hence; though all by me is lost,
Such favor I unworthy am vouchsafed,
By me the promised Seed shall all restore.
I LOVED thee long and dearly,
Florence Vane;
My life's bright dream and early
Hath come again;
I renew in my fond vision
My heart's dear pain,
My hopes and thy derision,
Florence Vane !
The ruin, lone and hoary,
The ruin old,
Where thou didst hark my story,
At even told,
|