Dost thou a brother's fate declare, Or for a sister call the tear? Ah! I have felt thy freezing power, In each department have I found The heart's true pang-and felt thy knell, Ah! what dost thou to mortals cry? "Ye thoughtless race, prepare to die! "And bid each earthly joy farewell, "Warn'd by the frequent passing bell." And oft as with the dawning day I'll hail thee, warning passing bell! For sure thou tell'st my life's short date Stanzas On revisiting my Native Town, in August, 1837. SOME years have I wander'd o'er uplands and valleys, Where nature looks barren, or fertile and chaste; Where Neptune indulges his maritime sallies Rebounds on the mountain or howls in the waste: But no ocean, no harbour, no villa on earth, Seems so lovely as Dereham, the place of my birth! Enraptured, I saw Sol rise from yon billow,* Or view'd from the Cader† his bright dawning ray; Then saw him recline on his blue western pillow,+ And silently leave the last shadows of day: But no mountain or valley, no prospect on earth Was so pleasing as Dereham, the town of my birth: Tho' the beauties of Cambria, awful and charming, * The German Ocean. + Cader Idris, in Merionethshire. The Irish Sea. No torrent, no vista, no garden on earth The pleasures of home, ever new and delighting, But why so enchanting ye meadows and flowers, Where Friendship and Love in simplicity smiled; Here's the Green and the Sandhill where fled my first hours; Still as beauteous as ever, as rural and wild— How sacred's yon cot! and yon sepulchre'd earth, 'Tis the dust of my fathers-the land of my birth. My fathers! ye records of life's revelation! Of patriarchs, prophets, and christians renown'd, Reveal to my faith by your sacred narration, The Jordan they've past, and the Canaan they've found, For there shall my soul disembodied arise, And my fathers rejoin in their own native skies. T. E. ABBOTT. 1 Withered Leaves. "We all do fade as a leaf."-ISAIAH. "So flourishes and fades, majestic man."-BEATTIE. OH tell me not that Beauty's power 'Tis but the triumph of an hour, For time, or sickness, to the tomb Consign it-and no traces last Oh say not when the breathing Spring For when her brilliant train are flown, Her fading trees incessant pour Their wither'd leaves-a bounteous shower! The splendid tints there seem display'd No tho' they're wither'd leaves, they stand As proofs of an almighty hand. Altho' no more their mazy veins In form and tint, to mark the day Emblems of feeble man!-like you Till age unlovely tells the truth Your day is set to rise no more! Of him who fills both earth and skiesYes! ev'n this faded form shall live again, "Bright thro' th' eternal year of love's triumphant reign." MRS. R. MILLER. |