EPITAPH ON A YOUNG NAVAL OFFICER, DESIGNED FOR A TOMB IN A SEAPORT TOWN IN NORTH WALES. SAILOR, if vigor nerve thy frame, For manly beauty decked his form, His bright eye beamed with mental power; Resistless as the winter storm, Yet mild as summer's mildest shower. In war's hoarse rage, in ocean's strife, Yet, youthful seaman, mourn not thou But hast thou known a father's care, Who sorrowing sent thee forth to sea; Poured for thy weal the unceasing prayer, And thought, the sleepless night, on thee? Has e'er thy tender fancy flown, When winds were strong and waves were high, Where, listening to the tempest's moan, Or in the darkest hour of dread, 'Mid war's wild din, and ocean's swell, Hast mourned a hero brother dead, And did that brother love thee well? Then pity those whose sorrows flow In vain o'er Shipley's empty grave;— Sailor, thou weep'st-Indulge thy wo; Such tears will not disgrace the brave. AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL. OUR task is done; on Gunga's breast Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams, If yonder hunter told us true, Far off, in desert dank and rude, The tiger holds his solitude; Nor (taught by secret charm to shun 'Mid nature's embers parched and dry, 64 AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL. Where, o'er some tower in ruin laid, The peepul spreads its haunted shade, Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe, Fit warder in the gate of death, Come on-yet pause: behold us now Beneath the bamboo's arched bough, Where gemming oft that sacred gloom, Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom, And winds our path through many a bower Of fragrant tree and giant flower; The ceiba's crimson pomp displayed O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade, And dusk anana's prickly blade; While o'er the brake, so wild and fair, The betel waves his crest in air. With pendent train and rushing wings, Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs; And he, the bird of hundred dyes, Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize. So rich a shade, so green a sod, Our English fairies never trod; Yet who in Indian bower has stood, But thought on England's 'good green wood?" And blessed, beneath the palmy shade, Her hazel and her hawthorn glade, And breathed a prayer, (how oft in vain,) To gaze upon her oaks again? A truce to thought: the jackal's cry AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL. 65 Resounds like sylvan revelry; And through the trees, yon failing ray Enough, enough, the rustling trees 4* |