Not for thee, soft compassion, celestials did know; But if angels can weep, sure man may repine, May weep in mute grief o'er thy low-laid shrine. V. And did I then say, for the altar of glory, That the earliest, the loveliest of flowers I'd entwine, Though with millions of blood-reeking victims 'twas gory, Though the tears of the widow polluted its shrine, Though around it the orphans, the fatherless pine? Oh! Fame, all thy glories I'd yield for a tear To shed on the grave of a heart so sincere. LOVE. WHY is it said thou canst not live Since withering pain no power possessed, The day-star dawns of love, Hast thou ne'er felt a rapturous thrill, When other passions die ?— Felt it in some wild noonday dream, 20 BIGOTRY'S VICTIM. I. DARES the lama, most fleet of the sons of the wind, The lion to rouse from his skull-covered lair? When the tiger approaches can the fast-fleeting hind Repose trust in his footsteps of air? No! Abandoned he sinks in a trance of despair, The monster transfixes his prey, On the sand flows his life-blood away; Whilst India's rocks to his death-yells reply, Protracting the horrible harmony. II. Yet the fowl of the desert, when danger encroaches, Dares fearless to perish defending her brood, Though the fiercest of cloud-piercing tyrants approaches, Thirsting-aye, thirsting for blood; And demands, like mankind, his brother for food; Yet more lenient, more gentle than they; Must perish. Revenge does not howl in the dead, Nor ambition with fame crown the murderer's head. III. Though weak, as the lama, that bounds on the mountains, And endued not with fast-fleeting footsteps of air, Yet, yet will I draw from the purest of foun tains, Though a fiercer than tiger is there. Though more dreadful than death, it scatters despair, Though its shadow eclipses the day, And the darkness of deepest dismay Spreads the influence of soul-chilling terror around, And lowers on the corpses, that rot on the ground. IV. They came to the fountain to draw from its stream Waves too pure, too celestial, for mortals to see; They bathed for a while in its silvery beam, Are slaves to his hated control. He pursues me, he blasts me! 'Tis in vain that I fly: What remains, but to curse him,-to curse him and die? TO THE MOONBEAM. I. MOONBEAM, leave the shadowy vale, But that can never be; And the clouds are light, That at intervals shadow the star-studded night. II. Now all is deathy still on earth, Flies forth its balmy breath. But mine is the midnight of Death, To my bosom forlorn, Brings but a gloomier night, implants a deadlier thorn. III. Wretch! Suppress the glare of madness When the twilight of care, And the night of despair, Seem in my breast but joys to the pangs that rankle there. FRAGMENT ON A FÊTE AT CARLTON HOUSE. By the mossy brink, With me the Prince shall sit and think; Rapt in bright dreams of dawning Royalty. TO HARRIETT: A FRAGMENT. O THOU Whose dear love gleamed upon the gloomy path Which this lone spirit travelled, drear and cold But swiftly leading to those awful limits Which mark the bounds of time, and of the space When time shall be no more,-wilt thou not turn Those spirit-beaming eyes, and look on me, TO A STAR. SWEET star, which gleaming o'er the darksome scene Through fleecy clouds of silvery radiance flyest, Spanglet of light on evening's shadowy veil, Which shrouds the day-beam from the waveless lake, Lighting the hour of sacred love; more sweet |