My heart is harder, and perhaps
My manliness hath drunk up tears,
And there's a mildew in the lapse
Of a few miserable years;
But nature's book is even yet
With all my mother's lessons writ.
I have been out at eventide
Beneath a moonlight sky of spring,
When earth was garnished like a bride,
And night had on her silver wing ;-
When bursting leaves and diamond grass,
And waters leaping to the light,
And all that makes the pulses pass
With wilder fleetness, thronged the night ;
When all was beauty-then have I,
With friends on whom my love is flung
Like myrrh on wings of Araby,
Gazed up where evening's lamp is hung.
And when the beautiful spirit there
Flung over me its golden chain,
My mother's voice came on the air
Like the light dropping of the rain;
And resting on some silver star
The spirit of a bended knee,
I've poured her low and fervent prayer,
That our eternity might be,
To rise in Heaven like stars at night,
And tread a living path of light!
I have been on the dewy hills
When night was stealing from the dawn And mist was on the waking rills,
And tints were delicately drawn
In the gray east-when birds were waking
With a low murmur in the trees,
A melody by fits was breaking
Upon the whisper of the breeze, And this when I was forth, perchance As a worn reveller from the dance
And when the sun sprang gloriously
And freely up, and hill and river
Were catching upon wave and tree
The arrows from his subtle quiver-
I say a voice has thrilled me then,
Heard on the still and rushing light,
Or creeping from the silent glen
Like words from the departing night,
Hath stricken me, and I have pressed
On the wet grass my fevered brow,
And pouring forth the earliest
First prayer, with which I learned to bow,
Have felt my mother's spirit rush
Upon me, as in by-past years,
And yielding to the blessed gush
Of my ungovernable tears,
Have risen up-the gay, the wild-
As humble as a very child.
Suggested by the Author's having found a branch of May in a volume of Burns's Poems, which had been deposited there by a Friend, several years before.
MEMORIAL frail of youthful years,
Of hopes as wild and bright as they,
Thy faint, sweet perfume calls up tears,
I may not, cannot wish away!
Thy withered leaves are as a spell
To bring the sainted past before me ;
And long-lost visions loved too well,
In all their truth restore me.
THE MAY-FLOWERS OF LIFE.
Cold is her hand who placed thee here,
Thou record sweet of Love and Spring,
Ere life's May-flowers, like thee, grew sere,
Or Hope had waved her parting wing:
When Boyhood's burning dreams were mine,
And Fancy's magic circlet crowned me;
And Love, when love is half divine,
Spread its enchantments round me !
How can I e'er forget the hour
When thou wert glowing on her breast,
Fresh from the dewy hawthorn bower
That looked upon the golden west !
She snatched thee from thy sacred shrine,-
A brighter fate she scarce could doom thee,-
And bade a poet's wreath be thine,-
His deathless page entomb thee!
That hour is past,-those dreams are fled,-
Ties, sweeter, holier, bind me now;
And, if life's first May-flowers are dead,
Its summer garland wreathes my brow!
Sleep on, sleep on !-I would but gaze
A moment on thy faded bloom;
Heave one wild sigh to other days,
Then close thy hallowed tomb!
THERE is a multitude, in number like
The waves of the wide ocean; and as still
As are those waters, when the summer breeze
Sleeps on the moveless billow; there is awe
On every countenance ; and each doth stand
In gasping breathlessness, as terror chained
The life pulse down; or, as they deemed, a sound
Might call down new destruction on their heads.-
The sun looked smiling from his clear blue throne,
And nature seemed to gladden in the ray;
When suddenly a cloud came over heaven,
A black and terrible shadow, as the gloom
Of the destroying angel's form; the wind
Swept past with hollow murmur; and the birds
Ceasing their song of joyfulness, with mute
And quick and tremulous flight, for shelter sought:
Fear was on every living thing: the earth
Trembled as she presaged some coming ill;
The voice of thunder spake; and in the midst
Of that proud city, in the midst of Rome,
The ground was riven in twain; and, on the spot
Where human steps had but so lately been,
There yawned a fearful gulf, dark as the powers
Of hell were gathered there-no eye might scan
That fathomless abyss. The Augur's voice
Hath told the will of heaven-nought may close
That gulf of terror, till it is the grave
Of all Rome holds most precious. Then speeds forth
A youthful warrior-" What is dear to Rome,
But patriot valour? Ye infernal Gods,
Who now look wrathful from your deep abodes,
Behold your ready sacrifice!" He comes,
Armed as for battle, save no plumed helm
His black hair presses: he is on the steed
Which has so often borne him to the field.-
Young Curtius came, but with a brow as firm,
And cheek unchanged, as he was wont to wear,
When he essayed the glorious strife of men:
Pride glanced upon his eye-but pride that seemed
As a remembrance of the higher state
In which aspiring spirits move; whose thoughts
Of avarice, indolence, and selfish care,
The chains of meaner ones, have given way
Before the mighty fire of the high soul-
Whose hope is immortality, whose steps
Are steps of flame, on which the many gaze
But dare not follow. He one moment paused,
And cast a farewell look on all around.
How beautiful must be the sky above,
And fair the earth beneath, to him who gives
A lingering look, and knows it is his last!-
Then onward urged his courser.-Hark! a voice,
A wild shriek rings upon the air: he turned,
And his glance fell on her, his own dear love.
She rushed upon his bosom silently,
As if her life were in that last embrace.
All was so still around, that every sob,
And the heart's throb of agony, were heard.
He clasped her, without power to soothe her grief,
But pressed her coral lip-did never flower
Yield fresher incense forth!-and kissed away
The tears on her pale cheek, then on her gazed.—
All his deep feeling, anguish, high resolves,
And love intense, were in that passionate glance.
He clasped her wildly, and his dark eye swam
In tenderness; but he has nerved his soul-
He has spurred on-and the dread gulf is closed!
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