242

MEMORY'S REGRETS.

O! beautiful exceedingly, is thy last lingering

look,

Which seems to bid a sad " farewell" to valley, hill, and brook;

And did not shades of doubt and fear upon my spirit lie,

Like thee, lone flower, I'd tranquilly breathe out my latest sigh.

L. MACGILVRAY.

MEMORY'S REGRETS.

WHEN forms we knew in death are cold, And voices hush'd which charmed of oldWhen hearts we loved have ceased to beat, And friends of youth no more may meet, When eyes which shone are sealed in night, We sadly turn from earth's delight!

When hopes which bless'd have pass'd away,
And friends have proved as false as they,
When youth's gay time is but a dream,
A phantom light, a fading gleam,
When cold neglect the feelings blight,
We sadly turn from earth's delight.

But, e'en amid these scenes of pain,
If one fond heart but true remain,

Though gloom may dwell around the shrine In which that heart beats true to thine, The flame within burns pure and bright And links us still to earth's delight!

CARPENTER.

THE MINSTREL'S LAMENT.

OH! Would that I had never known
The bright, but fatal gift of song,
My hours had not unheeded flown
Devoted to a wayward throng;
The throbbing heart, the burning brow,
Had both alike been spared to me;

I had not felt the anguish now

That Minstrel's lot must ever be.

The Minstrel's lot! unthankful task,
To culture flowers most fair and bright.
If any of their growth would ask?

They bloom amid the gloom of night! Their seeds spring up in after years; They only breathe the Minstrel's name, Who sowed in joy, but reaped in tears,

Who lived in song, but died in shame.

244

THE MINSTREL'S LAMENT.

The dead, the gifted, glorious dead,

Keats, Shelley, Coleridge, Crabbe, and Burns! Scarce noticed, until life had fled,

By those who now enrich their urns: Had they but lived to know the fame Created by their own wild lyres, Then more to praise, and less to blame, Had lived in their poetic fires.

Not e'en the Minstrel's soul can give
All to the future or the past;
It is not human thus to live

With care-clouds only o'er us cast.
The poet's mind, uncheered by praise,
Is like a lute with chords unstrung,
And thus we have the pensive lays

That former bards have played and sung.

Then, would that I had never known
The bright but fatal gift of song,
Nor had my life's best moments thrown,
Unnumbered, to a thankless throng;
'Tis vain-my strange and wayward fate

A blessing and a curse hath sent,
That makes me love what I should hate,
And sing again while I lament!

ANON.

THE POET'S DIRGE.

POET! lonely is thy bed,
And the turf is overhead,-

Cold earth is thy covering;
But thy heart hath found release,
And it slumbers full of peace
'Neath the rustle of green trees,
And the warm hum of the bees
'Mid the drowsy clover;
Through thy chamber, still as death,
A smooth gurgle wandereth,

As the blue stream murmureth

To the blue sky over.

Thou wast full of love and truth,
Of forgivingness and ruth,—

Thy great heart with hope and youth

Tided to o'erflowing;

Thou didst dwell in mysteries,

And there lingered on thine eyes

Shadows of serener skies,

Awfully wild memories

That were like foreknowing;

Thou didst remember well and long Some fragments of thine angel-song, And strive through want, and woe, and wrong,

To win the world unto it;

246

THE POET'S DIRGE.

Thy curse it was to see and hear
Beyond to-day's scant hemisphere,
Beyond all mists of doubt and fear,
Into a life more true and clear,-
And dearly thou didst rue it.

So once, when, high above the spheres,
Thy spirit sought its starry peers,
It came not back to face the jeers
Of brothers who denied it;
Star-crowned, thou didst possess the deeps
Of God, and thy white body sleeps
Where the lone pine for ever keeps
Patient watch beside it.

Poet! underneath the turf,

Soft thou sleepest, free from morrow; Thou hast struggled through the surf Of wild thoughts, and want, and sorrow; Now, beneath the moaning pine,

Full of rest thy body lieth,

While, far up in pure sunshine,
Underneath a sky divine,

Her loosed wings thy spirit trieth;
Oft she strove to spread them here,
But they were too white and clear
For our dingy atmosphere.