Imágenes de página
PDF
ePub

THE OAK.

IMITATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF METASTASIO.

THE tall oak, towering to the skies,
The fury of the wind defies,
From age to age, in virtue strong,
Inured to stand, and suffer wrong.

O'erwhelm'd at length upon the plain,
It puts forth wings, and sweeps the main;
The selfsame foe undaunted braves,
And fights the winds upon the waves.

THE WIDOW AND THE FATHERLESS.
WELL, thou art gone, and I am left:
But 0! how cold and dark to me
This world, of every charm bereft,
Where all was beautiful with thee!

Though I have seen thy form depart
For ever from my widow'd eye,

I hold thee in mine inmost heart;
There, there at least thou canst not die.
Farewell on earth: Heaven claim'd its own;
Yet, when from me thy presence went,
I was exchanged for God alone:
Let dust and ashes learn content.

Ha! those small voices, silver sweet!
Fresh from the fields my babes appear;
They fill my arms, they clasp my feet:
-"O! could your father see us here!"

HUMAN LIFE.

Job xiv.

How few and evil are thy days,
Man, of a woman born!

Trouble and peril haunt thy ways:
-Forth like a flower at morn,
The tender infant springs to light,
Youth blossoms with the breeze,
Age, withering age, is cropt ere night;
-Man like a shadow flees.

And dost Thou look on such a one?
Will God to judgment call

A worm, for what a worm hath done
Against the Lord of all?

As fail the waters from the deep,
As summer brooks run dry,

Man lieth down in dreamless sleep;
-Our life is vanity.

Man lieth down, no more to wake,
Till yonder arching sphere
Shall with a roll of thunder break,
And nature disappear.

-O! hide me, till thy wrath be past,
Thou, who canst kill or save;

Hide me, where hope may anchor fast In my Redeemer's grave.

THE BIBLE.

WHAT is the world?-A wildering maze,
Where sin hath track'd ten thousand ways,
Her victims to ensnare;

All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.

Millions of pilgrims throng those roads,
Bearing their baubles, or their loads,

Down to eternal night:

---One humble path, that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends
From darkness into light.

Is there a guide to show that path?.
The Bible:-He alone, who hath

The Bible, need not stray:
Yet he who hath, and will not give
That heavenly guide to all that live,
Himself shall lose the way.

THE DAISY IN INDIA.

Supposed to be addressed by the Rev. Dr. Carey, the learned and illustrious Baptist missionary at Serampore, to the first plant of this kind, which sprang up unexpectedly in his garden, out of some English earth, in which other seeds had been conveyed to him from this country. With great care and nursing, the doctor has been enabled to perpetuate the daisy in India, as an annual only, raised by seed preserved from season to

season.

THRICE Welcome, little English flower!
My mother country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,
Never to me such beauty spread:
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Whose tribes, beneath our natal skies,

Shut close their leaves while vapours lower;
But, when the sun's gay beams arise,
With unabash'd but modest eyes,
Follow his motion to the west,
Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,
Then fold themselves to rest.

Thrice welcome, little English flower,
To this resplendent hemisphere,
Where Flora's giant offspring towe
In gorgeous liveries all the year;
Thou, only thou, art little here,
Like worth unfriended and unknown,
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the torrid zone.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Of early scenes beloved by me,
While happy in my father's bower,
Thou shalt the blithe memorial be;

The fairy sports of infancy,

Youth's golden age, and manhood's prime,
Home, country, kindred, friends, with thee,
I find in this far clime.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
I'll rear thee with a trembling hand:
O, for the April sun and shower,
The sweet May dews of that fair land,
Where daisies, thick as starlight, stand
In every walk-that here may shoot
Thy scions, and thy buds expand,
A hundred from one root.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To me the pledge of hope, unseen;
When sorrow would my soul o'erpower
For joys that were, or might have been,
I'll call to mind how, fresh and green,
I saw thee waking from the dust;
Then turn to heaven with brow serene,
And place in God my trust.

Wine, oil, refreshment; he was heal'd;
I had myself a wound conceal'd;
But from that hour forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.

In prison I saw him next, condemn'd
To meet a traitor's doom at morn;
The tide of lying tongues I stemm'd,
And honour'd him midst shame and scorn:
My friendship's utmost zeal to try,
He ask'd, if I for him would die;

The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill,
But the free spirit cried, "I will."

Then in a moment to my view
The Stranger darted from disguise,
The tokens in his hands I knew,
My Saviour stood before mine eyes:
He spake; and my poor name He named;
"Of me thou hast not been ashamed:
These deeds shall thy memorial be;
Fear not, thou didst them unto Me."

THE STRANGER AND HIS FRIEND.

"Ye have done it unto me."-Matt. xxv. 40.

A POOR wayfaring man of grief
Hath often cross'd me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief,
That I could never answer, "Nay;"
I had not power to ask his name,
Whither he went, or whence he came,
Yet was there something in his eye,
That won my love, I knew not why.
Once, when my scanty meal was spread,
He enter'd;-not a word he spake :-
Just perishing for want of bread;
I gave him all; he bless'd it, brake,
And ate, but gave me part again;
Mine was an angel's portion then,
For while I fed with eager haste,
That crust was manna to my taste.

I spied him, where a fountain burst

Clear from the rock; his strength was gone;
The heedless water mock'd his thirst,
He heard it, saw it hurrying on:

I ran to raise the sufferer up;

Thrice from the stream he drain'd my cup, Dipt, and return'd it running o'er;

I drank, and never thirsted more.

'Twas night; the floods were out; it blew A winter hurricane aloof;

I heard his voice abroad, and flew

To bid him welcome to my roof;

I warm'd, I clothed, I cheer'd my guest,
Laid him on my own couch to rest;
Then made the hearth my bed, and seem'd
In Eden's garden while I dream'd.

Stript, wounded, beaten, nigh to death,
I found him by the highway side:

I roused his pulse, brought back his breath,
Revived his spirit, and supplied

VIA CRUCIS, VIA LUCIS.

NIGHT turns to day :

When sullen darkness lowers,

And heaven and earth are hid from sight

Cheer up, cheer up!

Ere long the opening flowers,

With dewy eyes, shall shine in light.

Storms die in calms:

When over land and ocean

Roll the loud chariots of the wind,
Cheer up, cheer up!

The voice of wild commotion
Proclaims tranquillity behind.

Winter wakes spring:

When icy blasts are blowing

O'er frozen lakes, through naked trees
Cheer up, cheer up!

All beautiful and glowing,

May floats in fragrance on the breeze.

War ends in peace:

Though dread artillery rattle,

And ghastly corpses load the ground,
Cheer up, cheer up!

Where groan'd the field of battle,

The song, the dance, the feast go round.

Toil brings repose:

With noontide fervours beating,

When droop thy temples o'er thy breast,

Cheer up, cheer up!

Gray twilight, cool and fleeting,

Wafts on its wing the hour of rest.

Death springs to life :

Though brief and sad thy story,

Thy years all spent in care and gloom,
Look up, look up!

Eternity and glory

Dawn through the portals of the tomb

THE AGES OF MAN.

YOUTH, fond youth! to thee in life's gay morning,
New and wonderful are heaven and earth;
Health the hills, content the fields adorning,
Nature rings with melody and mirth;
Love invisible, beneath, above,

Conquers all things; all things yield to love.

Time, swift time, from years their motion stealing,
Unperceived hath sober manhood brought:
Truth, her pure and humble forms revealing,
Peoples fancy's fairy-land with thought;
Then the heart, no longer prone to roam,
Loves, loves best, the quiet bliss of home.

Age, old age, in sickness, pain, and sorrow,
Creeps with lengthening shadow o'er the scene;
Life was yesterday, 'tis death to-morrow,
And to-day the agony between :

Then how longs the weary soul for thee,
Bright and beautiful eternity!

ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

HIGHER, higher will we climb
Up the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time

In our country's story:
Happy, when her welfare calls,
He who conquers, he who falls,

Deeper, deeper let us toil

In the mines of knowledge-
Nature's wealth and learning's spoil
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward will we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,
Excellence true beauty:
Minds are of supernal birth,

Let us make a heaven of earth.

Close and closer then we knit
Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit
In the wildest weather:

O! they wander wide, who roam
For the joys of life, from home.

Nearer, dearer bands of love
Draw our souls in union,
To our Father's house above,
To the saints' communion;
Thither every hope ascend,
There may all our labours end.

THE FALLING LEAF.

WERE I a trembling leaf,
On yonder stately tree,
After a season gay and brief,
Condemn'd to fade and flee;

I should be loath to fall

Beside the common way,

Weltering in mire, and spurn'd by all, Till trodden down to clay.

Nor would I choose to die

All on a bed of grass,

Where thousands of my kindred lie,

And idly rot in mass.

Nor would I like to spread

My thin and wither'd face

In hortus siccus, pale and dead,

A mummy of my race.

No, on the wings of air
Might I be left to fly,

I know not and I heed not where,

A waif of earth and sky!

Or flung upon the stream,
Curl'd like a fairy-boat,

As through the changes of a dream,
To the world's end to float!

Who that hath ever been,
Could bear to be no more?

Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before?

On, with intense desire,
Man's spirit will move on;

It seems to die, yet like Heaven's fire,
It is not quench'd, but gone.

THE ADVENTURE OF A STAR.

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY.

A STAR Would be a flower;

So down from heaven it came,

And in a honeysuckle bower

Lit up its little flame.

There on a bank, beneath the shade,
By sprays, and leaves, and blossoms made,

It overlook'd the garden ground,

-A landscape stretching ten yards round; O what a change of place

From gazing through eternity of space!

Gay plants on every side
Unclosed their lovely blooms,
And scatter'd far and wide
Their ravishing perfumes:
The butterfly, the bee,

And many an insect on the wing,
Full of the spirit of the spring,
Flew round and round in endless glee,
Alighting here, ascending there,
Ranging and revelling everywhere.

Now all the flowers were up, and drest
In robes of rainbow-colour'd light;
The pale primroses look'd their best,
Peonies blush'd with all their might;
Dutch tulips from their beds
Flaunted their stately heads;
Auriculas, like belles and beaux,

Glittering with birth-night splendour, rose ;

And polyanthuses display'd

The brilliance of their gold brocade :

Here hyacinths of heavenly blue
Shook their rich tresses to the morn,
While rose-buds scarcely show'd their hue,
But coyly linger'd on the thorn,

Till their loved nightingale, who tarried long,
Should wake them into beauty with his song.
The violets were past their prime,
Yet their departing breath

Was sweeter, in the blast of death,

Than all the lavish fragrance of the thyme.

Amidst this gorgeous train,

Our truant star shone forth in vain ;
Though in a wreath of periwinkle,

Through whose fine gloom it strove to twinkle,
It seem'd no bigger to the view

Than the light-spangle in a drop of dew.
-Astronomers may shake their polls,
And tell me,-every orb that rolls
Through heaven's sublime expanse
Is sun or world, whose speed and size
Confound the stretch of mortal eyes,
In nature's mystic dance:
It may be so

For aught I know,

Or aught indeed that they can show;
Yet till they prove what they aver,
From this plain truth I will not stir,
-A star's a star!-but when I think
Of sun or world, the star I sink;
Wherefore in verse, at least in mine,
Stars, like themselves, in spite of fate, shall
shine.

Now, to return (for we have wander'd far)
To what was nothing but a simple star;
-Where all was jollity around,
No fellowship the stranger found.
Those lowliest children of the earth,
That never leave their mother's lap,
Companions in their harmless mirth,
Were smiling, blushing, dancing there,
Feasting on dew, and light, and air,
And fearing no mishap,

Save from the hand of lady fair,
Who, on her wonted walk,

Pluck'd one and then another,
A sister or a brother,

From its elastic stalk;

Happy, no doubt, for one sharp pang, to die On her sweet bosom, withering in her eye.

[ocr errors]

Thus all day long that star's hard lot,
While bliss and beauty ran to waste,
Was but to witness on the spot
Beauty and bliss it could not taste,
At length the sun went down, and then
Its faded glory came again,
With brighter, bolder, purer light,
It kindled through the deepening night,
Till the green bower, so dim by day,
Glow'd like a fairy-palace with its beams;
In vain, for sleep on all the borders lay,
The flowers were laughing in the land of
dreams.

Our star, in melancholy state,
Still sigh'd to find itself alone,
Neglected, cold, and desolate,
Unknowing and unknown.
Lifting at last an anxious eye,
It saw that circlet empty in the sky
Where it was wont to roll,

Within a hair-breadth of the pole :
In that same instant, sore amazed,
On the strange blank all nature gazed;
Travellers, bewilder'd for their guide,
In glens and forests lost their way;
And ships, on ocean's trackless tide,
Went fearfully astray.

The star, now wiser for its folly, knew
Its duty, dignity, and bliss at home;
So up to heaven again it flew,
Resolved no more to roam.

One hint the humble bard may send
To her for whom these lines are penn'd:
-O may it be enough for her
To shine in her own character!
O may she be content to grace,

On earth, in heaven, her proper place!

MAKE WAY FOR LIBERTY.

On the exploit of Arnold Winkelried at the battle of Sempach, in which the Swiss, fighting for their independ ence, totally defeated the Austrians, in the fourteenth century.

"MAKE way for liberty!"--he cried; Made way for liberty, and died!

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood,

A living wall, a human wood!

A wall, where every conscious stone
Seem'd to its kindred thousands grown;
A rampart all assaults to bear,

Till time to dust their frames should wear;
A wood like that enchanted grove*
In which with fiends Rinaldo strove,
Where every silent tree possess'd
A spirit prison'd in its breast,
Which the first stroke of coming strife
Would startle into hideous life,
So dense, so still, the Austrians stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears,
Whose polish'd points before them shine,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Bright as the breakers' splendours run
Along the billows, to the sun.

Opposed to these a hovering band
Contended for their native land:

Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks th' ignoble yoke,
And forged their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords:
And what insurgent rage had gain'd,
In many a mortal fray maintain'd;

• See Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, canto xviii.

Marshall'd once more at freedom's call,
They came to conquer or to fall,
Where he who conquer'd, he who fell,
Was deem'd a dead, or living Tell!
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe'er his arrows flew,
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod
Which his awakening footstep trod.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burnt within,
The battle trembled to begin;

Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for attack was nowhere found,
Where'er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
That line 'twere suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants' feet,-
How could they rest within their graves,
And leave their homes, the homes of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanging chains above their head?

It must not be: This day, this hour,
Annihilates th' oppressor's power;
All Switzerland is in the field,
She will not fly, she cannot yield-
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.

Few were the number she could boast;
But every freeman was a host,
And felt as though himself were he
On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one, indeed;
Behold him,-Arnold Winkelried!
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.
Unmark'd he stood amid the throng.
In rumination deep and long,
Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o'er his face,
And by the motion of his form
Anticipate the bursting storm;
And by th' uplifting of his brow

Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

But 'twas no sooner thought than done,
The field was in a moment won :-

"Make way for liberty!" he cried,
Then ran, with arms extended wide,
As if his dearest friend to clasp;
Ten spears he swept within his grasp.

"Make way for liberty!" he cried;
Their keen points met from side to side:
He bow'd amongst them like a tree,
And thus made way for liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly;
"Make way for liberty!" they cry,
And through the Austrian phalanx dart,

As rush'd the spears through Arnold's heart;
While, instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic, scatter'd all:

75

An earthquake could not overthrow A city with a surer blow.

Thus Switzerland again was free: Thus death made way for liberty!

FOR THE FIRST LEAF OF A LADY'S ALBUM.

FLOWER after flower comes forth in spring,
Bird after bird begins to sing;

Till copse and field in richest bloom,
Sparkle with dew, and breathe perfume,-
While hill and valley, all day long,
And half the night, resound with song,
So may acquaintance, one by one,

Come like spring-flowers to meet the sun,
And o'er these pages pure and white,

Kind words, kind thoughts, kind prayers indite
Which sweeter odour shall dispense
Than vernal blossoms to the sense;

Till woods and streams less fair appear
Than autographs and sketches here:
-Or like the minstrels of the grove,
Pour strains of harmony and love,
The music made by heart to heart,
In which the least can bear a part,
More exquisite than all the notes
Of nightingales' and thrushes' throats.
Thus shall this book, from end to end,
Show in succession friend on friend,
By their own living hands portray'd,
In prose and verse, in light and shade,
By pen and pencil,-till her eye,
Who owns the volume shall descry
On many a leaf some lovely trace,
Reminding of a lovelier face!
With here and there the humbler line,
Recalling such a phiz as mine.

THE FIRST LEAF OF AN ALBUM.

Ut pictura, poesis.-Hor. de Art. Poet.
Two lovely sisters here unite
To blend improvement with delight;
Painting and poetry engage

By turns to deck the Album's page.

Here may each glowing picture be
The quintessence of poesy,
With skill so exquisitely wrought,
As if the colours were pure thought,-
Thought from the bosom's inmost cell,
By magic tints made visible,
That, while the eye admires, the mind
Itself, as in a glass, may find.

And may the poet's verse, alike,
With all the power of painting strike;
So freely, so divinely trace,

In every line the line of grace;
And beautify, with such sweet art,
The image-chamber of the heart,

3D 3

« AnteriorContinuar »