Is it indeed the night

That makes my home so awful? Faithless-hearted! "Tis that from thine own bosom hath departed The inborn, gladdening light!

No outward thing is changed;

Only the joy of purity is fled,
And, long from nature's melodies estranged,
Thou hear'st their tones with dread.

Therefore the calm abode,

By thy dark spirit, is o'erhung with shade; And therefore, in the leaves, the voice of God Makes thy sick heart afraid!

The night-flowers round that door

Still breathe pure fragrance on the untainted air;
Thou, thou alone art worthy now no more
To pass, and rest thee there.

And must I turn away?—

Hark, hark!—it is my mother's voice I hearSadder than once it seem'd-yet soft and clear;Doth she not seem to pray?

My name !-I caught the sound! Oh! blessed tone of love-the deep, the mild! Mother! my mother! now receive thy child: Take back the lost and found!

A THOUGHT OF PARADISE.

"We receive but what we give,

And in our life alone does nature live;
Ours is her wedding-garment, ours her shroud;
And, would we aught behold of higher worth
Than that inanimate, cold world allow'd
To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd,
Ah! from the soul itself must issue forth
A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud,
Enveloping the earth;

And from the soul itself must there be sent
A sweet and potent voice of its own birth,

Of all sweet sounds the life and element."-COLERIDGE.

GREEN spot of holy ground!

If thou couldst yet be found,

Far in deep woods, with all thy starry flowers; If not one sullying breath

Of time, or change, or death, Had touch'd the vernal glory of thy bowers;

Might our tired pilgrim-feet,
Worn by the desert's heat,

On the bright freshness of thy turf repose?
Might our eyes wander there

Through heaven's transparent air, And rest on colours of the immortal rose?

Say, would thy balmy skies
And fountain-melodies

Our heritage of lost delight restore?
Could thy soft honey-dews

Through all our veins diffuse
The early, child-like, trustful sleep once more?

And might we, in the shade

By thy tall cedars made,

With angel-voices high communion hold? Would their sweet, solemn tone Give back the music gone,

Our Being's harmony, so jarr'd of old?

Oh no!-thy sunny hours

Might come with blossom-showers,

All thy young leaves to spirit-lyres might thrill; But we should we not bring

Into thy realms of spring

The shadows of our souls to haunt us still?

What could thy flowers and airs
Do for our earth-born cares?

Would the world's chain melt off and leave us free?
No!-past each living stream,

Still would some fever-dream

Track the lorn wanderers, meet no more for thee!

Should we not shrink with fear If angel-steps were near, Feeling our burden'd souls within us die? How might our passions brook The still and searching look, The starlike glance of seraph purity?

Thy golden-fruited grove

Was not for pining love;

Vain sadness would but dim thy crystal skies!
Oh! thou wert but a part

Of what man's exiled heart
Hath lost-the dower of inborn Paradise!

LET US DEPART!

[It is mentioned by Josephus, that, a short time previous to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans, the priests, going by night into the inner court of the Temple to perform their sacred ministrations at the feast of Pentecost, felt a quaking, and heard a rushing noise, and, after that, a sound as of a great multitude saying, "Let us depart hence!"]

NIGHT hung on Salem's towers, And a brooding hush profound

THE SONG OF PENITENCE.1

UNFINISHED.

[We learn from the Rev. R. P. Graves, that "The Song of Penitence," if it had been finished in time, was intended for insertion among the "Scenes and Hymns of Life."]

HE pass'd from earth

Without his fame, the calm, pure, starry fame
He might have won, to guide on radiantly
Full many a noble soul,-he sought it not;
And e'en like brief and barren lightning pass'd
The wayward child of genius. And the songs
Which his wild spirit, in the pride of life,
Had shower'd forth recklessly, as ocean-waves
Fling up their treasures mingled with dark weed,
They died before him ;-they were winged seed
Scatter'd afar, and, falling on the rock
Of the world's heart, had perish'd. One alone,
One fervent, mournful, supplicating strain,
The deep beseeching of a stricken breast,
Survived the vainly-gifted. In the souls
Of the kind few that loved him, with a love
Faithful to even its disappointed hope,

That song of tears found root, and by their hearths
Full oft, in low and reverential tones,
Fill'd with the piety of tenderness,

Is murmur'd to their children, when his name
On some faint harp-string of remembrance falls,
Far from the world's rude voices, far away.
Oh! hear, and judge him gently; 'twas his last.

TROUBADOUR SONG.

THEY rear'd no trophy o'er his grave,
They bade no requiem flow;
What left they there to tell the brave
That a warrior sleeps below?

A shiver'd spear, a cloven shield,

A helm with its white plume torn, And a blood-stain'd turf on the fatal field, Where a chief to his rest was borne.

He lies not where his fathers sleep,

But who hath a tomb more proud? For the Syrian wilds his record keep, And a banner is his shroud.

THE ENGLISH BOY.

"Go, call thy sons; instruct them what a debt
They owe their ancestors; and make them swear
To pay it, by transmitting down entire
Those sacred rights to which themselves were born."
AKENSIDE

Look from the ancient mountains down,
My noble English boy!
Thy country's fields around thee gleam
In sunlight and in joy.

Ages have roll'd since foeman's march
Pass'd o'er that old, firm sod;
For well the land hath fealty held
To freedom and to God!

Gaze proudly on, my English boy!
And let thy kindling mind
Drink in the spirit of high thought
From every chainless wind!

There, in the shadow of old Time,
The halls beneath thee lie
Which pour'd forth to the fields of yore
Our England's chivalry.

How bravely and how solemnly

They stand, midst oak and yew!

Whence Cressy's yeomen haply framed The bow, in battle true.

And round their walls the good swords hang

Whose faith knew no alloy,

And shields of knighthood, pure from stain: Gaze on, my English boy!

Gaze where the hamlet's ivied church

Gleams by the antique elm, Or where the minster lifts the cross High through the air's blue realm.

Martyrs have shower'd their free heart's blood
That England's prayer might rise,
From those gray fanes of thoughtful years,
Unfetter'd, to the skies.

Along their aisles, beneath their trees,

This earth's most glorious dust, Once fired with valour, wisdom, song, Is laid in holy trust.

Gaze on-gaze farther, farther yet

My gallant English boy!

Yon blue sea bears thy country's flag, The billows' pride and joy!

Those waves in many a fight have closed
Above her faithful dead;
That red-cross flag victoriously
Hath floated o'er their bed.

They perish'd-this green turf to keep
By hostile tread unstain'd,
These knightly halls inviolate,
Those churches unprofaned.

And high and clear their memory's light
Along our shore is set,
And many an answering beacon-fire
Shall there be kindled yet!

Lift up thy heart, my English boy! And pray, like them to stand, Should God so summon thee, to guard The altars of the land.

TO THE BLUE ANEMONE.

FLOWER of starry clearness bright! Quivering urn of colour'd light! Hast thou drawn thy cup's rich dye From the intenseness of the sky? From a long, long fervent gaze Through the year's first golden days,

Up that blue and silent deep,
Where, like things of sculptured sleep,
Alabaster clouds repose,

With the sunshine on their snows?
Thither was thy heart's love turning,
Like a censer ever burning,
Till the purple heavens in thee
Set their smile, Anemone?

Or can those warm tints be caught
Each from some quick glow of thought
So much of bright soul there seems
In thy bendings and thy gleams,

So much thy sweet life resembles
That which feels, and weeps, and trembles,
I could deem thee spirit-fill'd,
As a reed by music thrill'd,
When thy being I behold
To each loving breath unfold,
Or, like woman's willowy form,
Shrink before the gathering storm!
I could ask a voice from thee,
Delicate Anemone !

Flower thou seem'st not born to die
With thy radiant purity,
But to melt in air away,
Mingling with the soft Spring-day,
When the crystal heavens are still,
And faint azure veils each hill,
And the lime-leaf doth not move,
Save to songs that stir the grove,
And earth all glorified is seen,
As imaged in some lake serene;
-Then thy vanishing should be,
Pure and meek Anemone !

Flower the laurel still may shed
Brightness round the victor's head;
And the rose in beauty's hair
Still its festal glory wear;

And the willow-leaves drop o'er

Brows which love sustains no more:

But by living rays refined,

Thou, the trembler of the wind,
Thou the spiritual flower,
Sentient of each breeze and shower,
Thou, rejoicing in the skies,
And transpierced with all their dyes;
Breathing vase, with light o'erflowing,
Gem-like to thy centre glowing,
Thou the poet's type shalt be,
Flower of soul, Anemone !