As then to me he seemed to fly,
And then new tears came in my eye,
And I felt troubled-and would fain
I had not left my recent chain;
And when I did descend again,
The darkness of my dim abode
Fell on me as a heavy load;
It was as is a new-dug grave,
Closing o'er one we sought to save,
And yet my glance, too much opprest,
Had almost need of such a rest.
It might be months, or years or days,
I kept no count-I took no note,
I had no hope my eyes to raise,
And clear them of their dreary mote;
At last men came to set me free,
I asked not why, and recked not where,
It was at length the same to me,
Fetter'd or fetterless to be,
I learn'd to love despair.
And thus when they appeared at last,
And all my bonds aside were cast,
These heavy walls to me had grown
A hermitage and all my own!
And half I felt as they were come
To tear me from a second home :
With spiders I had friendship made,
And watch'd them in their sullen trade;
Had seen the mice by moonlight play,
And why should I feel less than they?
We were all inmates of one place,
And I, the monarch of each race,
Had power to kill-yet, strange to tell!
In quiet we had learn'd to dwell-
My very chains and I grew friends,
So much a long communion tends
To make us what we are :-even I
Regained my freedom with a sigh.
COWARDS die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.—Shakspeare.
I HAD a little daughter,
And she was given to me
To lead me gently backward
To the Heavenly Father's knee,
That I, by the force of nature,
Might in some dim wise divine
The depth of His infinite patience
To this wayward soul of mine.
I know not how others saw her,
But to me she was wholly fair,
And the light of the heaven she came from
Still lingered and gleamed in her hair;
For it was as wavy and golden,
And as many changes took,
As the shadows of sun-gilt ripples
On the yellow bed of a brook.
To what can I liken her smiling
Upon me, her kneeling lover,
How it leaped from her lips to her eyelids,
And dimpled her wholly over,
Till her outstretched hands smiled also,
And I almost seemed to see
The very heart of her mother
Sending sun through her veins to me!
She had been with us scarce a twelvemonth,
And it hardly seemed a day,
When a troop of wandering angels
Stole my little daughter away;
Or perhaps those heavenly Zincali
But loosed the hampering strings,
And when they had opened her cage-door,
My little bird used her wings.
But they left in her stead a changeling,
A little angel child,
That seems like her bud in full blossom,
And smiles as she never smiled:
When I wake in the morning, I see it
Where she always used to lie,
And I feel as weak as a violet
Alone 'neath the awful sky;
As weak, yet as trustful also ;
For the whole year long I see
All the wonders of faithful Nature
Still worked for the love of me;
Winds wander, and dews drip earthward,
Rain falls, suns rise and set,
Earth whirls, and all but to prosper
A poor little violet.
This child is not mine as the first was,
I cannot sing it to rest,
I cannot lift it up fatherly
And bless it upon my breast;
Yet it lies in my little one's cradle
And sits in my little one's chair,
And the light of the heaven she's gone to
Transfigures its golden hair.
ISLE OF BEAUTY, FARE THEE WELL.
T. H. Bayley.
SHADES of ev'ning close not o'er us,
Leave our lonely bark a while;
Morn, alas! will not restore us
Yonder dim and distant isle.
Still my fancy can discover
Sunny spots where friends may dwell; Darker shadows round us hover,
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!
'Tis the hour when happy faces
Smile around the taper's light;
Who will fill our vacant places?
Who will sing our songs to-night?
Through the mist that floats above us
Faintly sounds the vesper-bell,
Like a voice from those who love us:
Breathing fondly, Fare thee well!
When the waves around me breaking,
As I pace the deck alone,
And my eye is vainly seeking
Some green leaf to rest upon;
When on that dear land I ponder,
Where my old companions dwell,
Absence makes the heart grow fonder-
Isle of Beauty, fare thee well!
MUSIC BY MOONLIGHT.-Shakspeare.
How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!
Here will we sit, and let the sounds of music
Creep in our ears; soft stillness, and the night,
Become the touches of sweet harmony.
Sit, Jessica. Look, how the floor of heaven
Is thick inlaid with patines of bright gold:
There's not the smallest orb, which thou behold'st,
But in his motion like an angel sings,
Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubins ;—
Such harmony is in immortal souls!
But whilst this muddy vesture of decay
Doth grossly close it in, we cannot hear it.
Come, ho, and wake Diana with a hymn :
With sweetest touches pierce your mistress' ear
And draw her home with music.
'TIS not for man to trifle! life is brief, And sin is here.
Our age is but the falling of a leaf,
We have no time to sport away the hours,
All must be earnest in a world like ours.
Not many lives, but only one have we,
One, only one;
How sacred should that one life ever be,
That narrow span!
Day after day filled up with blessed toil,
Hour after hour still bringing in new spoil.
Our being is no shadow of thin air,
No vacant dream,
No fable of the things that never were,
'Tis full of meaning as of mystery,
Tho' strange and solemn may that meaning be.
Our sorrows are no phantom of the night,
No idle tale;
No cloud that floats along a sky of light
On summer gale.
They are the true realities of earth,
Friends and companions even from our birth.
O life below,-how brief, and poor, and sad!
One heavy sigh.
O life above, how long, how fair, and glad!
An endless joy.
Oh, to be done with daily dying here;
Oh, to begin the living in yon sphere!
O day of time, how dark! O sky and earth,
How dull your hue;
O day of Christ, how bright! O sky and earth
Made fair and new!
Come, better Eden, with thy fresher green;
Come, brighter Salem, gladden all the scene.
IN men whom men condemn as ill
I find so much of goodness still,
In men whom men pronounce divine
I find so much of sin and blot,
I hesitate to draw a line
Between the two, where God has not.
J. AND W. RIDER, PRINTERS, LONDON.
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