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And we will dream it is thy joy we hear,
When life's young music, ringing far and clear,
O'erflows the sky:

-No tears for thee! the lingering gloom is ours-
Thou art for converse with all glorious powers,
Never to die!

TRIUMPHANT MUSIC.

Tacete, tacete, O suoni trionfanti !

Risvegliate in vano 'l cor che non può liberarsi.

WHEREFORE and whither bear'st thou up my spirit,

On eagle wings, through every plume that thrill? It hath no crown of victory to inherit—

Be still, triumphant harmony! be still!

Thine are no sounds for earth, thus proudly swelling

Into rich floods of joy:-it is but pain

To mount so high, yet find on high no dwelling,
To sink so fast, so heavily again!

No sounds for earth? Yes, to young chieftain
dying

On his own battle-field, at set of sun,
With his freed country's banner o'er him flying,
Well mightst thou speak of fame's high guerdon

won.

THE SEA-BIRD FLYING INLAND.*

Thy path is not as mine :--where thou art blest,
My spirit would but wither: mine own grief
Is in mine eyes a richer, holier thing,
Than all thy happiness.

HATH the summer's breath, on the south-wind
borne,

Met the dark seas in their sweeping scorn?
Hath it lured thee, Bird! from their sounding caves,
To the river-shores, where the osier waves?
Or art thou come on the hills to dwell,
Where the sweet-voiced echoes have many a cell?
Where the moss bears print of the wild-deer's tread,
And the heath like a royal robe is spread ?

There is joy where the song of the lark is heard,
Thou hast done well, O thou bright sea-bird!
With the dancing of waters through copse and dell,
And the bee's low tune in the fox-glove's bell.
Thou hast done well:-Oh! the seas are lone,
And the voice they send up hath a mournful tone;
A mingling of dirges and wild farewells,
Fitfully breathed through its anthem-swells.
-The proud bird rose as the words were said—
The rush of his pinion swept o'er my head,
And the glance of his eye, in its bright disdain,

No sounds for earth ?—Yes, for the martyr leading Spoke him a child of the haughty main.

Unto victorious death serenely on,

For patriot by his rescued altars bleeding,
Thou hast a voice in each majestic tone.

But speak not thus to one whose heart is beating
Against life's narrow bound, in conflict vain!
For power, for joy, high hope, and rapturous
greeting,

Thou wak'st lone thirst-be hushed, exulting
strain!

Be hushed, or breathe of grief!-of exile yearnings
Under the willows of the stranger-shore;
Breathe of the soul's untold and restless burnings,
For looks, tones, footsteps, that return no more.

Breathe of deep love-a lonely vigil keeping
Through the night-hours, o'er wasted wealth to
pine;

Rich thoughts and sad, like faded rose-leaves heaping,

In the shut heart, at once a tomb and shrine.

Or pass as if thy spirit-notes came sighing

From worlds beneath some blue Elysian sky; Breathe of repose, the pure, the bright, th' undying

Of joy no more-bewildering harmony!

He hath flown from the woods to the ocean's breast,
To his throne of pride on the billow's crest!
-Oh! who shall say, to a spirit free,
"There lies the pathway of bliss for thee?"

SECOND SIGHT.

Ne'er erred the prophet heart that grief inspired,
Though joy's illusions mock their votarist.-Maturin.

A MOURNFUL gift is mine, O friends!
A mournful gift is mine!
A murmur of the soul which blends

With the flow of song and wine.
An eye that through the triumph's hour
Beholds the coming wo,
And dwells upon the faded flower

'Midst the rich summer's glow.

Ye smile to view fair races bloom
Where the father's board is spread;

I see the stillness and the gloom

Of a home whence all are fled.

• Published first in the Edinburgh Literary Journal.

I see the withered garlands lie Forsaken on the earth,

While the lamps yet burn, and the dancers fly Through the ringing hall of mirth.

I see the blood-red future stain

On the warrior's gorgeous crest; And the bier amidst the bridal train When they come with roses drest.

I hear the still small moan of Time,

Through the ivy branches made, Where the palace, in its glory's prime, With the sunshine stands arrayed.

The thunder of the seas I hear,

The shriek along the wave,

When the bark sweeps forth, and song and cheer Salute the parting brave.

With every breeze a spirit sends

To me some warning sign:

A mournful gift is mine, O friends!

A mournful gift is mine!

Oh! prophet heart! thy grief, thy power,

To all deep souls belong;

The shadow in the sunny hour,

The wail in the mirthful song.

Their sight is all too sadly clear-
For them a vail is riven:

Their piercing thoughts repose not here,
Their home is but in Heaven.

THE SLEEPER.

For sleep is awful.-Byron.

OH! lightly, lightly tread!
A holy thing is sleep,
On the worn spirit shed,
And eyes that wake to weep.

A holy thing from Heaven,
A gracious dewy cloud,
A covering mantle given
The weary to enshroud.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!

Revere the pale still brow, The meekly-drooping head, The long hair's willowy flow. Ye know not what ye do,

That call the slumberer back, From the world unseen by you Unto life's dim faded track.

Her soul is far away,

In her childhood's land, perchance, Where her young sisters play, Where shines her mother's glance.

Some old sweet native sound
Her spirit haply weaves;
A harmony profound

Of woods with all their leaves;

A murmur of the sea,

A laughing tone of streams :Long may her sojourn be

In the music-land of dreams! Each voice of love is there,

Each gleam of beauty fled, Each lost one still more fair

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!`

THE MIRROR IN THE DESERTED HALL.

O, DIM, forsaken mirror!

How many a stately throng

Hath o'er thee gleamed, in vanished hours
Of the wine-cup and the song!

The song hath left no echo;

The bright wine hath been quaffed;

And hushed is every silvery voice

That lightly here hath laughed.

Oh! mirror, lonely mirror,

Thou of the silent hall!

Thou hast been flushed with beauty's bloomIs this, too, vanished all?

It is, with the scattered garlands
Of triumphs long ago;

With the melodies of buried lyres;
With the faded rainbow's glow.

And for all the gorgeous pageants,
For the glance of gem and plume,
For lamp, and harp, and rosy wreath,
And vase of rich perfume.

Now, dim, forsaken mirror,
Thou givest but faintly back

The quiet stars, and the sailing moon,
On her solitary track.

And thus was man's proud spirit
Thou tellest me 't will be,

When the forms and hues of this world fade
From his memory, as from thee:

And his heart's long-troubled waters
At last in stillness lie,

Reflecting but the images

Of the solemn world on high.

HYMN OF THE MOUNTAIN CHRIS

TIAN.

CHURCH MUSIC.

"All the train

"Thanks be to God for the mountains."

Howitt's Book of the Seasons.

FOR the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

Thou hast made thy children mighty,

By the touch of the mountain sod. Thou hast fixed our ark of refuge

Where the spoiler's foot ne'er trod;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee,
Our God, our fathers' God!

We are watchers of a beacon
Whose lights must never die;
We

We are guardians of an altar
Midst the silence of the sky;
The rocks yield founts of courage

Struck forth as by thy rod

For the strength of the hills we bless thee, O God, our fathers' God!

For the dark, resounding heavens,

Where thy still small voice is heard,
For the strong pines of the forests,
That by thy breath are stirred;
For the storms on whose free pinions

Thy spirit walks abroad—

For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

The royal eagle darteth

On his quarry from the heights, And the stag that knows no master, Seeks there his wild delights;

But we for thy communion

Have sought the mountain sod

For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

The banner of the chieftain

Far, far below us waves; The war-horse of the spearman

Can not reach our lofty caves; Thy dark clouds wrap the threshold

Of freedom's last abode;

For the strength of the hills we bless thee Our God, our fathers' God!

For the shadow of thy presence

Round our camp of rock outspread; For the stern defiles of battle,

Bearing record of our dead; For the snows, and for the torrents, For the free heart's burial sod, For the strength of the hills we bless thee, Our God, our fathers' God!

Sang Hallelujah, as the sound of seas."

Milton.

AGAIN! oh, send those anthem notes again!
Through the arched roof in triumph to the sky!
Bid the old tombs give echoes to the strain,
The banners tremble, as with victory!

Sing them once more!-they waft my soul away,
High where no shadow of the past is thrown;
No earthly passion through th' exulting lay,
Breathes mournfully one haunting under-tone.

All is of Heaven!-yet wherefore to mine eye,
Gush the quick tears unbidden from their source,
E'en while the waves of that strong harmony,
Sweep with my spirit on their sounding course?
Wherefore must rapture its full tide reveal,
Thus by the signs betokening sorrow's power?
-Oh! is it not, that humbly we may feel
Our nature's limits in its proudest hour!

TO A PICTURE OF THE MADONNA.

Ave Maria! May our spirits dare
Look up to thine, and to thy son's above?

FAIR vision! thou 'rt from sunny skies,
Born where the rose hath richest dyes;
To thee a southern heart hath given
That glow of Love, that calm of Heaven,
And round thee cast th' ideal gleam,
The light that is but of a dream.

Far hence, where wandering music fills
The haunted air of Roman hills,
Or where Venetian waves of yore
Heard melodies they hear no more,
Some proud old minster's gorgeous aisle
Hath known the sweetness of thy smile.

Or, haply, from a lone, dim shrine,
'Mid forests of the Apennine,
Whose breezy sounds of cave and dell
Pass like a floating anthem-swell,
Thy soft eyes o'er the pilgrim's way
Shed blessings with their gentle ray.

Or gleaming through a chestnut wood,
Perchance thine island-chapel stood,
Where from the blue Sicilian sea,
The sailor's hymn hath come to thee,
And blessed thy power to guide, to save,
Madonna! watcher of the wave!

Byron.

Oh! might a voice, a whisper low,
Forth from those lips of beauty flow!
Couldst thou but speak of all the tears,
The conflicts and the pangs of years,
Which, at thy secret shrine revealed,
Have gushed from human hearts unsealed!

Surely to thee hath woman come,
As a tired wanderer back to home!
Unveiling many a timid guest,

And treasured sorrow of her breast,

A buried love-a wasting care

Oh! did those griefs win peace from prayer?

And did the poet's fervid soul

To thee lay bare its inmost scroll?

Murmuring up from the depth of the heart, When lovely things with their light depart, And the inborn sound hath a prophet's tone, And we feel that a joy is forever gone.

"We return-we return-we return no more!" -Is it heard when the days of flowers are o'er, When the passionate soul of the night-bird's lay Hath died from the summer woods away? When the crimson from sun-set's robe hath passed, Or the leaves are swept on the rushing blast?

No-it is not the rose that returns no more,
A soft spring's breath will its bloom restore,
And it is not the song that o'erflows the bowers

Those thoughts, which poured their quenchless With a stream of love through the starry hours,

fire

And passion o'er th' Italian lyre,

Did they to still submission die,
Beneath thy calm, religious eye?

And hath the crested helmet bowed
Before thee, 'midst the incense-cloud?
Hath the crowned leader's bosom lone,
To thee its haughty griefs made known?
Did thy glance break their frozen sleep,
And win the unconquered one to weep?
Hushed is the anthem-closed the vow-
Thy votive garland withered now;
Yet holy still to me thou art,
Thou that hast soothed so many a heart!
And still must blessed influence flow
From the meek glory of thy brow.

Still speak to suffering woman's love,
Of rest for gentle hearts above;
Of Hope, that hath its treasure there,
Of Home, that knows no changeful air!
Bright form, lit up with thoughts divine,
Ave! such power be ever thine!

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And it is not the glory of sunset's hues, Nor the frail flushed leaves that the wild wind strews.

"We return-we return-we return no more!" --Doth the bird sing thus from the brighter shore, Those wings that follow the Southern breeze, Float they not homeward o'er vernal seas? Yes from the lands of the vine and palm They come with the sunshine when waves grow calm.

"But We-We return-we return no more!"
The heart's young dreams when their bloom is o'er,
The love it hath poured so freely forth,
The boundless trust in ideal worth,
The faith in affection-deep, fond-yet vain,
These are the lost that return not again.

SONG.

WHAT Woke the buried sound that lay
In Memnon's harp of yore?
What spirit on its viewless way

Along the Nile's green shore?
-Oh! not the night, and not the storm,
And not the lightning's fire—

But sunlight's touch-the kind-the warm-
This woke the mystic lyre!
This, this, awoke the lyre!

What wins the heart's deep chords to pour Their music forth on life,

Like a sweet voice, prevailing o'er

The sounds of torrent strife? -Oh! not the conflict midst the throng,

Not e'en the triumph's hour;Love is the gifted and the strong To wake that music's power! His breath awakes that power!

THE PARTING OF SUMMER.

THOU 'rt bearing hence thy roses,
Glad Summer, fare thee well!
Thou 'rt singing thy last melodies
In every wood and dell.

But ere the golden sunset

Of thy latest lingering day,

Oh! tell me, o'er this chequered earth,
How hast thou passed away?

Brightly, sweet Summer! brightly
Thine hours have floated by,

To the joyous birds of the woodland boughs,
The rangers of the sky.

And brightly in the forests,"

To the wild deer wandering free; And brightly, 'midst the garden flowers, Is the happy murmuring bee:

But how to human bosoms,

With all their hopes and fears,

And thoughts that make them eagle-wings,
To pierce the unborn years?

Sweet Summer! to the captive

Thou hast flown in burning dreams Of the woods, with all their whispering leaves, And the blue rejoicing streams;—

To the wasted and the weary

On the bed of sickness bound,
In swift delirious fantasies,
That changed with every sound ;-

To the sailor on the billows,

In longings, wild and vain, For the gushing founts and breezy hills, And the homes of earth again!

And unto me, glad Summer!
How hast thou flown to me?
My chainless footstep nought hath kept
From thy haunts of song and glee.

Thou hast flown in wayward visions,
In memories of the dead-
In shadows, from a troubled heart,
O'er thy sunny pathway shed:

In brief and sudden strivings,

To fling a weight aside'Midst these thy melodies have ceased, And all thy roses died.

But, oh! thou gentle Summer!

If I greet thy flowers once more, Bring me again the buoyancy

Wherewith my soul should soar!

Give me to hail thy sunshine,

With song and spirit free; Or in a purer air than this

May that next meeting be!

THE WORLD IN THE OPEN AIR. COME, while in freshness and dew it lies, To the world that is under the free, blue skies Leave ye man's home, and forget his careThere breathes no sigh on the dayspring's air.

Come to the woods, in whose mossy dells
A light all made for the poet dwells;
A light, coloured softly by tender leaves,
Whence the primrose a mellower glow receives.

The stock-dove is there in the beechen-tree,
And the lulling tone of the honey-bee;
And the voice of cool waters, 'midst feathery fern,
Shedding sweet sounds from some hidden urn.

There is life, there is youth, there is tameless mirth, Where the streams, with the lilies they wear, have birth;

There is peace where the alders are whispering low:
Come from man's dwellings, with all their wo!

Yes!-we will come-we will leave behind
The homes and the sorrows of human kind;
It is well to rove where the river leads
Its bright, blue vein along sunny meads:

It is well through the rich, wild woods to go,
And to pierce the haunts of the fawn and doe;
And to hear the gushing of gentle springs,
When the heart has been fretted by worldly stings:

And to watch the colours that flit and pass,
With insect wings through the wavy grass;
And the silvery gleams o'er the ash-trees bark,
Borne in with a breeze through the foliage dark.

Joyous and far shall our wanderings be,
As the flight of birds o'er the glittering sea;
To the woods, to the dingles where violets blow,
We will bear no memory of earthly wo.

But if, by the forest-brook, we meet
A line like the pathway of former feet;—
If, 'midst the hills, in some lonely spot,
We reach the gray ruins of tower or cot;-

If the cell, where a hermit of old hath prayed,
Lift up its cross through the solemn shade;—
Or if some nook, where the wild-flowers wave,
Bear token sad of a mortal grave,-

Doubt not but there will our steps be stayed,
There our quick spirits awhile delayed;
There will thought fix our impatient eyes,
And win back our hearts to their sympathies.

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