Look up to heaven! the industrious sun
Already half his race hath run;
He cannot halt nor go astray,
But our immortal spirits may.
Lord! since his rising in the east,
If we have faltered or transgressed,
Guide, from thý love's abundant source,
What yet remains of this day's course:
Help with thy grace, through life's short day,
Our upward and our downward way;
And glorify for us the west,
When we shall sink to final rest.
FEBRUARY, 1816.
"REST, rest, perturbed earth!
Oh, rest, thou doleful mother of mankind!'
A spirit sang in tones more plaintive than the wind:
"From regions where no evil thing has birth
I come-thy stains to wash away,
Thy cherished fetters to unbind,
To open thy sad eyes upon a milder day.
The heavens are thronged with martyrs that have risen From out thy noisome prison;
The penal caverns groan
With tens of thousands rent from off the tree
Of hopeful life, by battle's whirlwind blown
Into the deserts of eternity.
"Unpitied havoc! Victims unlamented!
But not on high, where madness is resented,
And murder causes some sad tears to flow,
Though, from the widely-sweeping blow,
The choirs of angels spread, triumphantly augmented.
"False parent of mankind!
Obdurate, proud, and blind.
I sprinkle thee with soft celestial dews,
Thy lost maternal heart to re-infuse!
Scattering this far-fetched moisture from my wings,
Upon the act a blessing I implore,
Of which the rivers in their secret springs,
The rivers stained so oft with human gore,
Are conscious; may the like return no more!
May Discord-for a seraph's care
Shall be attended with a bolder prayer-
May she, who once disturbed the seats of bliss
These mortal spheres above,
Be chained for ever to the black abyss!
And thou, O rescued earth, by peace and love,
And merciful desires, thy sanctity approve!"
The spirit ended his mysterious rite,
And the pure vision closed in darkness infinite.
PRESENTIMENTS.
PRESENTIMENTS! they judge not right
Who deem that ye from open light
Retire in fear of shame;
All heaven-born instincts shun the touch
Of vulgar sense, and, being such,
Such privilege ye claim.
The tear whose source I could not guess,
The deep sigh that seemed fatherless,
Were mine in early days;
unforced by Time to part
With Fancy, I obey my heart,
And venture on your praise.
What though some busy foes to good,
Too potent over nerve and blood,
Lurk near you, and combine
To taint the health which ye
This hides not from the moral muse
Your origin divine.
How oft from you, derided powers!
Comes Faith that in auspicious hours
Builds castles, not of air;
Bodings unsanctioned by the will
Flow from your visionary skill,
And teach us to beware.
The bosom-weight, your stubborn gift
That no philosophy can lift,
Shall vanish, if ye please,
Like morning mist; and, where it lay
The spirits at your bidding play
In gaiety and ease.
Star-guided contemplations move
Through space, though calm, not raised above
Prognostics that ye rule;
The naked Indian of the wild,
And haply, too, the cradled child,
Are pupils of your school.
But who can fathom your intents,
Number their signs or instruments?
A rainbow, a sunbeam,
A subtle smell that spring unbinds,
Dead pause abrupt of midnight winds,
An echo, or a dream.
The laughter of the Christmas hearth
With sighs of self-exhausted mirth
Ye feelingly reprove;
And daily, in the conscious breast,
Your visitations are a test
And exercise of love.
When some great change gives boundless scope
To an exulting nation's hope,
Oft, startled and made wise
By your low-breathed interpretings,
The simply-meek foretaste the springs
Of bitter contraries.
Ye daunt the proud array of war,
Pervade the lonely ocean far
As sail hath been unfurled;
For dancers in the festive hall
What ghastly partners hath your call
Fetched from the shadowy world!
"Tis said that warnings ye dispense,
Emboldened by a keener sense;
That men have lived for whom,
With dread precision, ye made clear
The hour that in a distant year
Should knell them to the tomb.
Unwelcome insight! Yet there are
Blest times when mystery is laid bare;
Truth shows a glorious face,
While on that isthmus which commands
The councils of both worlds she stands,
Sage Spirits! by your grace.
God, who instructs the brutes to scent
All changes of the element,
Whose wisdom fixed the scale
Of natures, for our wants provides
By higher, sometimes humbler, guides,
When lights of Reason fail.
THE PRIMROSE OF THE ROCK.
A ROCK there is whose homely front
The passing traveller slights;
Yet there the glowworms hang their lamps,
Like stars, at various heights;
And one coy primrose to that rock
The vernal breeze invites.
What hideous warfare hath been waged,
What kingdoms overthrown,
Since first I spied that primrose-tuft
And marked it for my own;
A lasting link in Nature's chain
From highest heaven let down!
The flowers, still faithful to the stems,
Their fellowship renew;
The stems are faithful to the root,
That worketh out of view;
And to the rock the root adheres
In every fibre true.
Close clings to earth the living rock,
Though threatening still to fall;
The earth is constant to her sphere;
And God upholds them all:
So blooms this lonely plant, nor dreads
Her annual funeral.
Here closed the meditative strain;
But air breathed soft that day,
The hoary mountain-heights were cheered,
The sunny vale looked gay;
And to the primrose of the rock
I gave this after-lay.
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