No! weep not that the ruin-trace
Of wasting time is seen,
Around the form and in the face
Where beauty's lines have been :—
But mourn the INWARD Wreck we feel
As blighted years depart,
And Time's benumbing fingers steal
Young feelings from the heart!
Those joyous thoughts that rise and spring From out the buoyant mind,
Like summer bees upon the wing,
Or echoes on the wind.
The hopes that sparkle every hour,
Like blossoms from a soul
Where sorrow sheds no blighting power, And care has no controul,—
With all the rich enchantment thrown
On Life's fair scene around,
As if the world within a zone
Of happiness were bound!
Oh! these endure a mournful doom,
As day by day they die;
Till age becomes a barren tomb
Where perish'd feelings lie!
YOUNG, chaste, and lovely-pleas'd, yet half afraid,
Before yon altar droops a plighted maid,
Clad in her bridal robes of taintless white,
Dumb with the scene, and dazzled with delight;-
Around her hymeneal guardians stand,
Each with devoted look, and feeling bland;
And oft she turns her soul-expressing eye,
Dimm'd with a tear for happiness gone by!
Then coyly views, in youth's commanding pride,
Her own adored one kneeling by her side;
Like lilies bending from the noon-tide blaze,
Her bashful eye-lids droop beneath his gaze;
While love and homage blend their blissful power,
And shed a halo round his marriage hour.
What though this chance-abounding life ordain A path of anguish and precarious pain; By want or woe, where'er compell'd he rove, A cot's a palace by the light of love!
There beats one heart, which until death will be A fountain-source of fondest sympathy;
One frownless eye to kindle with his own,
One changeless friend, when other friends are flown:
O! sanction Thou the love-united pair,
Author of Love! for Thou art present there.
ANOTHER of the wond'rous see!
Whose spirit talk'd with Deity,
And, blind on earth, beheld in heaven
The glory to archangels giv'n,
When, robed in light, their garments blaze
And whiten in eternal rays!—
No cavern'd prophet, while he felt
A trance almighty round him melt;
Or by some Babylonian stream
From darkness shaped his awful dream,
Wherein there glided, vast and dim,
The cloud-apparell'd cherubim,-
Hath scarce outsoar'd his epic flight
Who sang of Chaos, Death, and Night!—
Had none, methinks, but Milton's song
Pour'd its grand tide the world along,
Had never page but his reveal'd
The miracles in mind conceal'd,—
The hope immortal still would rest
Unblighted in the human breast;
For, never could a narrow grave
Th' immeasurable soul enslave,
That compass'd air, and heaven, and hell,—
The lord of his creative spell!
With what a melody divine
The river of each noble line
Flows onward!-faint, or loud, or deep,
Accordant to the numbers' sweep.
Go, enter some majestic fane,
And listen to the organ strain,
When melting clouds of music float
Down the dim aisles with blending note;
Now, with wild melodious thunder
The vaulted pavement echoes under,
Then, aloft in flights of sound,
The winged harmonies abound,—
Evanishing like birds that stray
And skyward sing their boundless way!-
For thus can Milton's numbers roll
Their cadence o'er the tranced soul.
NIGHT-SCENE-CAMPS OF ISRAEL.
ON yonder palmy mount,
Lo! sleeping myriads in the dewy hush
Of night repose; around, in squared array,
The camps are set; and in the midst, apart,
The curtain'd shrine, where mystically dwells
Jehovah's presence!-through the soundless air
A cloudy pillar, robed in burning light,
Appears:-concenter'd, as one mighty heart,
A million lie, in mutest slumber bound,
Or, panting like the ocean, when a dream
Of storm awakes her: Heaven and Earth are still; In radiant loveliness the stars pursue
Their pilgrimage, while moonlight's wizard hand Throws beauty, like a spectre-light, on all.
BUT see, where Persia's beauteous clime extends,
How gloriously diluvian Ararat
Hath pinnacled his rocky peak in clouds!
He thrones a Winter on his awful head,
And lays the Summer laughing at his feet.
Time cannot mar his glory; grand he swells,
As when the Ark was balanced on his brow,
That saw the flashing of the far-off floods
Beneath, and heard the Deluge die away!
MORNING SCENE AT ELSINORE.
His torpid mind I envy not,
Though crown and kingdom were his lot,
Who here, amid this morning balm,
With Nature eloquently calm,-
With tender sky and tranquil sea,
Partook no inborn sympathy.
The canopy of heaven is hung
As blue as poet ever sung;
Though here and there ́serenely glide
Along the air's cerulean tide
Pale clouds, that seem too delicate
For breeze to touch their fairy state.-
Beneath a window, far away,
Oh, stranger, let thy fancy stray,
For seldom can thy dreams expand
Their wings o'er more delightful land :
The warble of yon distant waves,
As lightly oft the billow laves
The greenwood bank, and grassy shore,
That bounds the sea of Elsinore;
Yon mountain's dim and dusky form,
Which, like a dying thunder-storm,
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