Oh, for a deathless song to meet
The soul's desire—a lay,
That, when a thousand years are told,
Should praise thee, genial power!
Through summer heat, autumnal cold,
And winter's dreariest hour.
Earth, sea, thy presence feel-nor less
(If yon ethereal blue
With its soft smile the truth express,)
The heavens have felt it too.
The inmost heart of man, if glad,
Partakes a livelier cheer;
And eyes that cannot but be sad
Let fall a brighten'd tear.
Since thy return, through days and weeks.
Of hope that grew by stealth,
How many wan and faded cheeks
Have kindled into health!
The old, by thee revived, have said,
"Another year is ours ;"
And way-worn wanderers, poorly fed,
Have smiled upon thy flowers.
Who tripping lisps a merry song
Amid his playful peers?
The tender infant, who was long
A prisoner of fond fears;
But now, when every sharp-edged blast
Is quiet in its sheath,
His mother leaves him free to taste
Earth's sweetness in thy breath.
Thy help is with the weed that creeps
Along the humblest ground;
No cliff so bare but on its steeps
Thy favours may be found;
But most on some peculiar nook
That our own hands have drest,
Thou and thy train are proud to look,
And seem to love it best.
And yet how pleased we wander forth
When May is whispering, "Come!
Choose from the bowers of virgin earth
The happiest for your home;
Heaven's bounteous love through me is spread
From sunshine, clouds, winds, waves,-
Drops on the mouldering turret's head,
And on your turf-clad graves."
HATH not old custom made this life more sweet
Than that of painted pomp? Are not these woods
More free from peril than the envious court?
Here feel we but the penalty of Adam,-
The seasons' difference; as the icy fang
And churlish chiding of the winter's wind,
Which when it bites and blows upon my body,
E'en till I shrink with cold, I smile, and say,
Acknowledge Him the greater, sound His praise
In thy eternal course, both when thou climb'st,
And when high noon hast gain'd, and when thou
fall'st.
Moon, that now meet'st the orient sun, now fly'st;
With the fix'd stars, fix'd in their orb that flies;
And ye five other wand'ring fires, that move
In mystic dance, not without song resound
His praise, who out of darkness call'd up light.
Air and ye elements, the eldest birth
Of nature's womb, that in quaternion run
Perpetual circle, multiform, and mix
And nourish all things, let your ceaseless change
Vary to our great Maker still new praise.
Ye mists and exhalations, that now rise
From hill or steaming lake, dusky or grey,
Till the sun paint your fleecy skirts with gold,
In honour to the woods' great Author rise,
Whether to deck with clouds the uncolour'd sky,
Or wet the thirsty earth with falling showers ;
Rising or falling, still advance His praise.
His praise, ye winds, that from four quarters
Breathe soft or loud; and wave your tops, ye
With ev'ry plant, in sign of worship wave.
Fountains, and ye that warble as ye flow,
Melodious murmurs warbling, tune His praise.
Join voices all, ye living souls; ye birds,
That singing up to heaven's gate ascend,
Bear on your wings and in your notes His praise;
Ye that in waters glide, and ye that walk
The earth, and stately tread or lowly creep,
Witness if I be silent, morn or e'en,
To hill or valley, fountain or fresh shade,
Made vocal by my song, and taught His praise.
Hail, universal Lord! be bounteous still
To give us only good; and if the night
Have gather'd aught of evil, or conceal'd,
Disperse it, as now light dispels the dark.
UNSEEN WATCHERS.
Is there a spot in memory's shrine
More dear than all the rest,
Sure 'tis where those we loved, no more
By sin or grief oppress'd,
Beneath the daisied turf awhile in peace do softly
And flowers, dissolved in tears of dew, alone sweet vigils keep.
Thither at rosy morning tide,
Thither at sultry noon,
But chiefly when the evening sky
Waits for the summer moon,
When all is still, and not a leaf doth quiver in the
Thither, by paths unknown to us, sweet fancy loves to rove.
UNSEEN WATCHERS.
We may not trace with mortal eye
The path of trackless thought,
Nor ken how time and space to it
Are but as things of nought;
We only know it is a boon by God to mortals given,
That they, while pilgrims here on earth, might reach in thought e'en heaven.
A sudden pause, a word, a look,
Mid those whom Death hath left us,
Summons, unbid, to instant view,
Friends of whom he hath reft us;
Then by-gone scenes we trace again, and days live o'er again
In tearful pleasure, though the soul shrinks from the pleasing pain.
Once more we mark the well-known form
To which so oft we've clung,
Fancy we hear, as once we heard,
Sweet accents from that tongue
Now mute in death; but like a dream, anon, at sudden wave
Of Fancy's magic rod they pass, and sink into the
Lo! we are standing on the mound
Which hides the once-loved head—
Hush! beating heart, 'tis holy ground,
The chambers of the dead.
|