I thank thee that I am not such as these,
I thank thee for the eye that sees, the heart
That feels, the voice that in these evil days
That amid evil tongues, exalts itself
And cries aloud against the iniquity.
BY W. MASON ON THE DEATH OF HIS WIFE, IN BRISTOL
TAKE, holy Earth! all that my soul holds dear: Take that best gift which heav'n so lately gave:— To Bristol's fount I bore with trembling care
Her faded form: she bowed to taste the wave And died. Does youth, does beauty, read the line? Does sympathetic fear their breast alarm?
Speak, dead Maria! breathe a strain divine:
Ev'n from the grave thou shalt have power to charm.
Bid them be chaste, be innocent, like thee;
Bid them in duty's sphere as meekly move;
And if so fair, from vanity as free;
As firm in friendship, and as fond in love.
Tell them, tho' 'tis an awful thing to die,
(Twas e'en with thee) yet the dread path once trod, Heav'n lifts its everlasting portals high,
And bids "the pure in heart behold their God."
THE sun is up; and slowly on the tide,
How gay, how fair the painted barges glide,
While o'er yon level length of mead, is seen
Bright as an emerald, in its robe of green.
The mill-sail ceaseless turns-the laden wain
Creaks as it wears along the rushy plain,
And many a thought to calm enjoyment dear,
And many a scene of patient toil is here-
Along each broomy mead, each willowy shore,
The little hamlet opes its willing-door:
And here content with ever watchful breast,
Dove-like sits brooding o'er its sheltered nest.
And nursed by her, here patriot valour calls
From Delf's high spires, and Haarlem's mould'ring walls,
And Leyden's streets yet nobler scenes afford,
The scholar's counsel edged the soldier's sword,
While he, the baffled tyrant shrunk to see
In famines ghastly eye, the gleam of liberty.
Then why should he, the pensive traveller grieve
For scenes like these, his native hills to leave,
Marked he how trim yon garden's trellis'd bound,
How streaked with beauty rose the flower-girt mound:
Saw he the swan, his snowy plumage lave,
And the green island tremble in the wave:
Marked he the moated watch-tower rise around
With many a peak'd fantastic turret crown'd.
The village spire seen frequent o'er the trees,
The tufted osiers rustling in the breeze:
The kine that pasture in the champaign wide,
The frequent barge laveering on the tide,
The poplar grove with autumns foilage gay,
These all shall cheer him on his length'ning way—
For many a day content with scenes like these,
Well-pleas'd I gaz'd; for all had power to please.
The painted summer-house that o'er the stream,
Catches the evening sun's departing gleam:
The willow weeping o'er the turf; the vine
Whose beamy clusters through the lattice shine,
And the long colonnade; whose dark'ning green,
Through pillar'd arches just admits the scene;
The slow canal, the air-hung bridge, the tree
Of figur'd form:-they all had charms for me.
Here late with him I roamed, who many a day
Had left his native vallies far away-
And now well-nigh the autumn day was done
And Ryswick's spires shone in the setting sun.
From mead to mead as slow we loiter'd there,
Soft chimes came floating through the evening air,
The music of his native land*:-it came
And burst, and lighten'd on his heart; like flame
What instant visions floated o'er his eyes,-
Yon level meads in mountain structures rise:
Again he heard, as oft in youth, the bee
Wind his blithe horn in pleasant harmony-
The carillons in the Churches in Holland very often play Swiss tunes.
He heard the echoes of the torrent swell
Along the peaked rocks of Apenzell;
Again he saw the bounding chamois roam,
Scared by the eagle from his alpine home,
He heard Lausanne's still waters gently creep,
And move and murmur, to the mountain's steep;
While the pale moon, from out her cloudy cave,
Drop'd her still anchor in the twilight wave.
AH! quiet day, I oft recal the time,
When I did chace my childish sluggishness,
(The "rear of darkness ling'ring still") to dress
In due sort for thy coming: the first chime
Of blithsome bells, that usher'd in the morn,
Carol'd to me of rest and simplest mirth:
Twas then all happiness on the wide earth
To gaze! I little dreamt, that man was born
For ought but wholesome toil and holiest praise
Thanking that God who made him to rejoice!
But I am changed now! nor could I raise
My sunken spirit at thy well-known voice;
But that thou seemest soothingly to say,
"Look up poor mourner, to a BETTER DAY.”
HOW sweet and solemn at the close of day, After a long and lonely pilgrimage
Among the mountains, where our spirits held With wildering fancy and her kindred powers High converse, to descend as from the clouds Into a quiet valley, fill'd with trees
By Nature planted, crowding round the brink
Of an oft-hidden rivulet, or hung
A beauteous shelter o'er the humble roof
Of many a moss-grown cottage!
Of pensive happiness, the wandering man
Looks for some spot of still profounder rest,
Where nought may break the solemn images
Sent by the setting sun into his soul.
Up to yon simple edifice he walks,
That seems beneath its sable grove of pines
More silent than the home where living thing
Abides, yea, even than desolated tower
Wrapt in its ivy-shroud.
The village chapel: many a year ago,
That little dome to God was dedicate;
And ever since, hath undisturbed peace
Sat on it, moveless as the brooding dove
That must not leave her nest. A mossy wall,
Bathed though in ruins with a flush of flowers,
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