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Than the expiring morn-star's paly fires: Sweet star! When wearied Nature sinks to

sleep,

And all is hushed,—all, save the voice of Love, Whose broken murmurings swell the balmy

blast

Of soft Favonius, which at intervals

10

Sighs in the ear of stillness, art thou aught but

Lulling the slaves of interest to repose

With that mild, pitying gaze! Oh, I would

look

In thy dear beam till every bond of sense
Became enamoured-

LOVE'S ROSE.

I.

HOPES, that swell in youthful breasts,
Live not through the waste of time.
Love's rose a host of thorns invests;
Cold, ungenial is the clime,
Where its honours blow.

Youth says, The purple flowers are mine,
Which die the while they glow.

II.

Dear the boon to Fancy given,

Retracted whilst it's granted: Sweet the rose which lives in heaven, Although on earth 'tis planted,

Where its honours blow,

While by earth's slaves the leaves are riven Which die the while they glow.

III.

Age cannot Love destroy,

But perfidy can blast the flower,
Even when in most unwary hour
It blooms in Fancy's bower.
Age cannot Love destroy,

But perfidy can rend the shrine

In which its vermeil splendours shine.

TO MARY, WHO DIED IN THIS

OPINION.

J.

MAIDEN, quench the glare of sorrow
Struggling in thine haggard eye:
Firmness dare to borrow

From the wreck of destiny;
For the ray morn's bloom revealing
Can never boast so bright an hue

As that which mocks concealing, And sheds its loveliest light on you.

II.

Yet is the tie departed

Which bound thy lovely soul to bliss?
Has it left thee broken-hearted

In a world so cold as this?

Yet, though, fainting fair one,

Sorrow's self thy cup has given;

Dream thou'lt meet thy dear one,

Never more to part, in heaven.

III.

Existence would I barter

For a dream so dear as thine,

And smile to die a martyr

On affection's bloodless shrine.

Nor would I change for pleasure
That withered hand and ashy cheek,
If my heart enshrined a treasure
Such as forces thine to break.

MOTHER AND SON.

I.

SHE was an agèd woman; and the years Which she had numbered on her toilsome way

Had bowed her natural powers to decay. She was an agèd woman; yet the ray Which faintly glimmered through her starting tears,

Pressed into light by silent misery,
Hath soul's imperishable energy.

She was a cripple, and incapable
To add one mite to gold-fed luxury:
And therefore did her spirit dimly feel
That poverty, the crime of tainting stain,
Would merge her in its depths, never to rise
again.

II.

One only son's love had supported her.
She long had struggled with infirmity,
Lingering to human life-scenes; for to die,
When fate has spared to rend some mental
tie,

Would many wish, and surely fewer dare.
But, when the tyrant's bloodhounds forced

the child

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Then did she feel keen sorrow's keenest sting;

And many years had passed ere comfort they would bring.

III.

For seven years did this poor woman live
In unparticipated solitude.

Thou mightst have seen her in the forest
rude

Picking the scattered remnants of its wood.

If human, thou mightst then have learned to grieve.

The gleanings of precarious charity
Her scantiness of food did scarce supply.

The proofs of an unspeaking sorrow dwelt Within her ghastly hollowness of eye:

Each arrow of the season's change she felt.

Yet still she groans, ere yet her race were run, One only hope: it was-once more to see her

son.

IV.

It was an eve of June, when every star Spoke peace from heaven to those on earth that live.

She rested on the moor. "Twas such an

eve

When first her soul began indeed to grieve: Then he was here; now he is very far. The sweetness of the balmy evening

A sorrow o'er her agèd soul did fling,
Yet not devoid of rapture's mingled tear:
A balm was in the poison of the sting.

This agèd sufferer for many a year

Had never felt such comfort. She suppressed A sigh-and, turning round, clasped William to her breast!

V.

And, though his form was wasted by the

woe

Which tyrants on their victims love to wreak,

Though his sunk eyeballs and his faded. cheek

Of slavery's violence and scorn did speak, Yet did the aged woman's bosom glow. The vital fire seemed reillumed within By this sweet unexpected welcoming.

Oh consummation of the fondest hope That ever soared on fancy's wildest wing! Oh tenderness that found'st so sweet a scope!

Prince who dost pride thee on thy mighty

sway,

When thou canst feel such love, thou shalt be great as they!

VI.

Her son, compelled, the country's foes had fought,

Had bled in battle; and the stern control Which ruled his sinews and coerced his soul

Utterly poisoned life's unmingled bowl, And unsubduable evils on him brought. He was the shadow of the lusty child

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