By all those bright and happy hours We spent in life's sweet eastern bow'rs, Where thou wouldst sit and smile, and show, Ere buds were come, where flowers would grow, And oft anticipate the rise
Of life's warm sun that scaled the skies;
By many a story of love and glory, And friendships promised oft to me; By all the faith I lent to thee,— Oh! take, young seraph, take thy harp, And play to me so cheerily;
For grief is dark, and care is sharp, And life wears on so wearily, Oh! take thy harp!
Perchance the strings will sound less clear, That long have lain neglected by
In sorrow's misty atmosphere;
It ne'er may speak as it has spoken
Such joyous notes so brisk and high; But are its golden chords all broken? Are there not some, though weak and low, To play a lullaby to woe?
But thou canst sing of love no more,
For Celia show'd that dream was vain;
And many a fancied bliss is o'er,
That comes not e'en in dreams again. Alas! alas!
How pleasures pass,
And leave thee now no subject, save The peace and bliss beyond the grave!
Then be thy flight among the skies:
Take, then, oh! take the skylark's wing, And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise O'er all its tearful clouds, and sing
On skylark's wing!
Another life-spring there adorns
Another youth, without the dread
Of cruel care, whose crown of thorns
Is here for manhood's aching head. Oh! there are realms of welcome day, A world where tears are wiped away! Then be thy flight among the skies :
Take, then, oh! take the skylark's wing, And leave dull earth, and heavenward rise O'er all its tearful clouds and sing On skylark's wing!
OLD fictions say that Love hath eyes Yet sees, unhappy boy! with none; Blind as the night! but fiction lies, For Love doth always see with one.
To one our graces all unveil,
To one our flaws are all exposed; But when with tenderness we hail,
He smiles, and keeps the critic closed.
But when he's scorned, abused, estranged,
He opes the eye of evil ken,
And all his angel friends are changed
To demons-and are hated then!
Yet once it happ'd that, semi-blind, He met thee on a summer day, And took thee for his mother kind, And frown'd as he was push'd away.
But still he saw thee shine the same, Though he had oped his evil eye,
And found that nothing but her shame Was left to know his mother by !
And ever since that morning sun He thinks of thee, and blesses Fate That he can look with both on one Who hath no ugliness to hate.
A FRAGMENT.
-Methought I saw
Life swiftly treading over endless space; And, at her foot-print, but a bygone pace, The ocean Past, which, with increasing wave, Swallow'd her steps like a pursuing grave.
Sad were my thoughts that anchor'd silently On the dead waters of that passionless sea, Unstirr'd by any touch of living breath : Silence hung over it, and drowsy Death, Like a gorged sea-bird, slept with folded wings On crowded carcases-sad passive things That wore the thin grey surface, like a veil Over the calmness of their features pale.
And there were spring-faced cherubs that did sleep Like water-lilies on that motionless deep, How beautiful! with bright unruffled hair On sleek unfretted brows, and eyes that were Buried in marble tombs, a pale eclipse! And smile-bedimpled cheeks, and pleasant lips, Meekly apart, as if the soul intense
Spake out in dreams of its own innocence:
And so they lay in loveliness, and kept
The birth-night of their peace, that Life e'en wept With very envy of their happy fronts;
For there were neighbour brows scarr'd by the brunts Of strife and sorrowing-where Care had set
His crooked autograph, and marr'd the jet Of glossy locks, with hollow eyes forlorn, And lips that curl'd in bitterness and scorn- Wretched,—as they had breathed of this world's pain And so bequeathed it to the world again, Through the beholder's heart in heavy sighs. So lay they garmented in torpid light, Under the pall of a transparent night, Like solemn apparitions lull'd sublime To everlasting rest,—and with them Time Slept, as he sleeps upon the silent face Of a dark dial in a sunless place,
O'ER hill, and dale, and distant sea, Through all the miles that stretch between, My thought must fly to rest on thee, And would-though worlds should intervene.
Nay, thou art now so dear, methinks The farther we are forced apart, Affection's firm elastic links,
But bind thee closer round the heart.
For now we sever each from each, I learn what I have lost in thee; Alas, that nothing else could teach How great indeed my love should be!
Farewell! I did not know thy worth; But thou art gone, and now 'tis prized: So angels walked unknown on earth, But when they flew were recognised!
WE watch'd her breathing through the night,
Her breathing soft and low,
As in her breast the wave of life Kept heaving to and fro.
So silently we seem'd to speak, So slowly moved about,
As we had lent her half our powers To eke her living out.
Our very hopes belied our fears, Our fears our hopes belied— We thought her dying when she slept, And sleeping when she died.
For when the morn came dim and sad, And chill with early showers, Her quiet eyelids closed-she had Another morn than ours.
STILL glides the gentle streamlet on, With shifting current new and strange ; The water, that was here, is gone, But those green shadows never change.
Serene or ruffled by the storm, On present waves, as on the past, The mirror'd grove retains its form,
The self-same trees their semblance cast.
« AnteriorContinuar » |