Hath no deep tone that seems to float
From a happier time gone by.

And there the day's last crimson
Gives no sad memories birth,
No thought of dead or distant friends,
Or partings-as on earth.

Yet fearfully and mournfully

Thou bidd'st that earth farewell,
Although thou'rt passing, loveliest one!
In a brighter land to dwell.

A land where all is deathless-
The sunny wave's repose,
The wood with its rich melodies,
The summer and its rose.

A land that sees no parting,

That hears no sound of sighs,
That waits thee with immortal air-
Lift, lift those anxious eyes!

Oh! how like thee, thou trembler !
Man's spirit fondly clings

With timid love, to this, its world
Of old familiar things!

We pant, we thirst for fountains
That gush not here below!
On, on we toil, allured by dreams
Of the living water's flow:

We pine for kindred natures
To mingle with our own;

For communings more full and high
Than aught by mortal known:

We strive with brief aspirings

Against our bonds in vain;

Yet summon'd to be free at last,

We shrink-and clasp our chain;

And fearfully and mournfully
We bid the earth farewell,

Though passing from its mists, like thee,
In a brighter world to dwell.

I GO,

I

THE BOON OF MEMORY.

"Many things answered me."-Manfred.

go !-and must mine image fade

From the green spots wherein my childhood play',

By my own streams?

Must my life part from each familiar place,
As a bird's song, that leaves the woods no trace
Of its lone themes?

Will the friend pass my dwelling, and forget
The welcomes there, the hours when we have met
In grief or glee?

All the sweet counsel, the communion high,
The kindly words of trust, in days gone by,
Pour'd full and free?

A boon, a talisman, O Memory! give,
To shrine my name in hearts where I would live
For evermore?

Bid the wind speak of me where I have dwelt,
Bid the stream's voice, of all my soul hath felt,
A thought restore!

In the rich rose, whose bloom I loved so well,
In the dim brooding violet of the dell,
Set deep that though!

And let the sunset's melancholy glow,
And let the Spring's first whisper, faint and low,
With me be fraught!

And Memory answer'd me:-" Wild wish and vain!
I have no hues the loveliest to detain

In the heart's core.

The place they held in bosoms all their own,

Soon with new shadows fill'd, new flowers o'ergrown, Is theirs no more.'

Hast thou such power, O Love ?-And Love replied, "It is not mine! Pour out thy soul's full tide Of hope and trust,

Prayer, tear, devotedness, that boon to gain-
'Tis but to write with the heart's fiery rain,
Wild words on dust!"

Song, is the gift with thee?—I ask a lay,
Soft, fervent, deep, that will not pass away
From the still breast;

Fill'd with a tone-oh! not for deathless fame,
But a sweet haunting murmur of my name,
Where it would rest.

And Song made answer-" It is not in me,
Though call'd immortal; though my gifts may be
All but divine.

A place of lonely brightness I can give :

A changeless one, where thou with Love wouldst liveThis is not mine!"

Death, Death! wilt thou the restless wish fulfill? And Death the Strong One, spoke :-" I can but still Each vain regret.

What if forgotten?-All thy soul would crave,
Thou too, within the mantle of the grave,
Wilt soon forget."

Then did my heart in lone faint sadness die,
As from all nature's voices one reply,

But one-was given.

"Earth has no heart, fond dreamer! with a tone
To send thee back the spirit of thine own-
Seek it in Heaven."

AMIDST the peopled and the regal Isle,
Whose vales, rejoicing in their beauty, smile;
Whose cities, fearless of the spoiler, tower,
And send on every breeze a voice of power;
Hath Desolation rear'd herself a throne,
And mark'd a pathless region for her own?
Yes! though thy turf no stain of carnage wore,
When bled the noble hearts of many a shore,
Though not a hostile step thy heath-flowers bent,
When empires totter'd, and the earth was rent;
Yet lone, as if some trampler of mankind
Had still'd life's busy murmurs on the wind,
And, flush'd with power in daring pride's excess,
Stamp'd on thy soil the curse of barrenness;
For thee in vain descend the dews of heaven,
In vain the sunbeam and the shower are given;
Wild Dartmoor! thou that, 'midst thy mountains rude,
Hast robed thyself with haughty solitude,

As a dark cloud on summer's clear blue sky,

A mourner, circled with festivity!

For all beyond is life!-the rolling sea,

The rush, the swell, whose echoes reach not thee.
Yet who shall find a scene so wild and bare,

But man has left his lingering traces there?
F'en on mysterious Afric's boundless plains,

Where noon with attributes of midnight reigns.
In gloom and silence, fearfully profound,
As of a world unwaked to soul or sound,
Though the sad wand'rer of the burning zone
Feels, as amidst infinity, alone,

And nought of life be near; his camel's tread
Is o'er the prostrate cities of the dead!
Some column, rear'd by long-forgotten hands,
Just lifts its head above the billowy sands-
Some mouldering shrine still consecrates the scene
And tells that glory's footstep there hath been.
There hath the spirit of the mighty pass'd,
Not without record; though the desert blast,
Borne on the wings of Time, hath swept away
The proud creations rear'd to brave decay.
But thou, lone region! whose unnoticed name
No lofty deeds have mingled with their fame,
Who shall unfold thine annals?-who shall tell
If on thy soil the sons of heroes fell,

In those far ages, which have left no trace,
No sunbeam, on the pathway of their race?
Though, haply, in the unrecorded days

Of kings and chiefs, who pass'd without their praise,
Thou might'st have rear'd the valiant and the free:
In history's page there is no tale of thee.

Yet hast thou thy memorials. On the wild
Still rise the cairns of yore, all rudely piled,'
But hallow'd by that instinct which reveres
Things fraught with characters of elder years.
And such are these. Long centurics are flown,
Bow'd many a crest, and shatter'd many a throne,
Mingling the urn, the trophy, and the bust,

With what they hide-their shrined and treasured dust;
Men traverse Alps and oceans, to behold

Earth's glorious works fast mingling with her mould ; But still these nameless chronicles of death,

'Midst the deep silence of the unpeopled heath,

Stand in primeval artlessness, and wear

The same sepulchral mien, and almost share

Th' eternity of nature, with the forms

Of the crown d hills beyond, the dwellings of the storms.

Yet, what avails it, if each moss-grown heap

Still on the waste its lonely vigils keep,

Guarding the dust which slumbers well beneath

(Nor needs such care) from each cold season's breath? Where is the voice to tell their tale who rest,

Thus rudely pillow'd on the desert's breast?

Doth the sword sleep beside them? Hath there been
A sound of battle 'midst the silent scene

Where now the flocks repose ?-did the scythed car
Here reap its harvest in the ranks of war?

And raise these piles in memory of the slain,
And the red combat of the mountain-plain?

It may be thus:-the vestiges of strife,
Around yet lingering, mark the steps of life,
And the rude arrow's barb remains to tell 2
How by its stroke, perchance, the mighty fell
To be forgotten. Vain the warrior's pride,
The chieftain's power-they had no bard, and died.'
But other scenes, from their untroubled sphere.
The eternal stars of night have witness'd here.
There stands an altar of unsculptured stone,4
Far on the moor, a thing of ages gone,
Propp'd on its granite pillars, whence the rains,
And pure bright dews, have laved the crimson stains
Left by dark rites of blood: for here, of yore,
When the bleak waste a robe of forest wore,
And many a crested oak, which now lies low,
Waved its wild wreath of sacred mistletoe;

Here, at dead midnight, through the haunted shade,
On Druid-harps the quivering moonbeam play'd,

And spells were breath'd, that fill'd the deepening gloom
With the pale, shadowy people of the tomb.
Or, haply, torches waving through the night,

Bade the red cairn-fires blaze from every height,"
Like battle signals, whose unearthly gleams
Threw o'er the desert's hundred hills and streams,
A savage grandeur; while the starry skies
Rung with the peal of mystic harmonies,

As the loud harp its deep-toned hymns sent forth

To the storm-ruling powers, the war-gods of the North.

But wilder sounds were there; th' imploring cry
That woke the forest's echo in reply,

But not the heart's! Unmoved, the wizard train
Stood round their human victim, and in vain
His prayer for mercy rose; in vain his glance
Look'd up, appealing to the blue expanse,

Where, in their calm, immortal beauty, shone

Heaven's cloudless orbs. With faint and fainter moan,

Bound on the shrine of sacrifice he lay,

Till, drop by drop, life's current ebb'd away;

Till rock and turf grew deeply, darkly red,

And the pale moon gleam'd paler on the dead.

Have such things been, and here ?-where stillness dwells 'Midst the rude barrows and the moorland swells,

Thus undisturb'd?-Oh! long the gulf of time
Hath closed in darkness o'er those days of crime,
And earth no vestige of their path retains,
Save such as these, which strew her loneliest plains
With records of man's conflicts and his doom,
His spirit and his dust-the altar and the tomb.