The quiet lake, the balmy air,
The hill, the stream, the tower, the tree,Are they still such as once they were,
Or is the dreary change in me?
Alas! the warp'd and broken board,
How can it bear the painter's dye?
The harp of strain’d and tuneless chord,
How to the minstrel's skill reply!
To aching eyes each landscape lowers,
To feverish pulse each gale blows chill;
And Araby's or Eden's bowers
Were barren as this moorland bill.
In peasant life he might have known
As fair a face, as sweet a tone:
But village notes could ne'er supply
That rich and varied melody;
And ne'er in cottage maid was seen
The easy dignity of mien,
Claiming respect, yet waiving state,
That marks the daughters of the great.
Oh what a pure and sacred thing
Is beauty, curtain'd from the sight
Of the gross world, illumining
One only mansion with her light !
Unseen by man's disturbing eye-
The flower that blooms beneath the sea,
Too deep for sunbeams, doth not lie
Hid in more chaste obscurity.
MOORE.
Will you hear what I can say
Briefly of my Julia ?
Black and rolling is her eye,
Double chinn'd and forehead high;
Lips she has all ruby red,
Cheeks like cream enclareted,
And a nose that is the grace
And proscenium of her face;
So that we may guess by these
The other parts will richly please.
HERRICK.
FRIENDSHIP, NOT LOVE.
To love her was an easy, hest,
The secret empress of his breast;
To woo her was a harder task
To one that durst not hope or ask.
Yet all Matilda could, she gave
In pity to her gentle slave:
Friendship, esteem, and fair regard,
And praise, the poet's best reward !
She read the tales his taste approved,
And sung the lays he framed or loved :
Yet, loath to nurse the fatal flame
Of hopeless love in friendship's name,
In kind caprice she oft withdrew
The favouring glance to friendship due,
Then grieved to see her victim's pain,
And gave the dangerous smiles again.
Scott.
Oh! colder than the wind that freezes
Founts, that but now in sunshine play'd,
Is that congealing pang which seizes
The trusting bosom, when betray'd,
He felt it-deeply felt-and stood
As if the tale had frozen his blood :
So mazed and motionless was he,
Like one whom sudden spells enchant,
Or some mute marble habitant
Of the still halls of Ishmonie.
MOORE.
WRITTEN IN THE BLANK LEAF OF A LADY'S
COMMON-PLACE BOOK.
Here is one leaf reserved for me,
From all thy sweet memorials free :
And here my simple song might tell
The feelings thou must guess so well.
But could I thus, within thy mind,
One little vacant corner find,
Where no impression yet is seen,
Where no memorial yet hath been,
Oh! it would be my sweetest care
To write my name for ever there!
MOORE.
You
say
I love not, 'cause I do not play
Still with your ringlets, and kiss time away;
By love's religion, I must here confess it,
The most I love when I the least express it!
Small gifts find tongues ; full casks are ever found
To give, if any, yet but little sound :
Deep waters noiseless are; and this we know
That chiding streams betray small depth below;
So when love speechless is, it doth express
A depth in love, and that depth bottomless.
Now since my love is tongueless, know me such
Who speaks but little, 'cause I love so much.
HERRICK.
Yet if, as holiest men have deem'd, there be
A land of souls beyond that sable shore,
To shame the doctrine of the Sadducee
And sophists, madly vain of dubious love ;
How sweet it were in concert to adore
With those who made our mortal labours light !
To hear each voice we fear'd to hear no more!
Behold each mighty shade reveal'd to sight,
The Bactrian, Samian sage, and all who taught the right!
BYRON.
This singularly spirited poem is taken froin the August number of Putnam's American Monthly, where it appears anonymously.
SADDLE! saddle! saddle!
Mount, mount, and away!
Over the dim green prairie,
Straight on the track of day;
Spare not spur
for
mercy, Hurry with shout and thong, Fiery and tough is the mustang,
The prairie is wide and long.
Saddle! saddle! saddle!
Leap from the broken door,
Where the brute Camanche enter'd,
And the white-foot treads no more:
The but is burnt to ashes,
There are dead men stark outside,
And only a long torn ringlet
Left of the stolen bride.
THE RESTORATION.
By LYDIA A. CALDWELL.
MORE pale than in her coffin-robe,
The lady lies apart;
Her white palms folded close above
The silence in her heart.
You might suppose her sweet death-smile
Betoken'd life instead,
If such as she did ever smile
Till after they were dead.
The same white star, whose waning light
Foretells the laggard morn,
Rose o'er her mother's dying couch
The night her child was born.
Amid her deathly pain she look'd
Up through her window-bars,
And sought her baby's horoscope
Among the prophet stars.
The prophet stars were pitiful-
They hid within the skies ;
And kept their secret until death
Had closed the mother's eyes.
The fatal stars were pitiful,
But not the coming years ;
They took the maiden's woman-trust,
And left her woman's tears.
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