Is there no duteous youth, to sprinkle now-
One drop of water on his lip and brow?
No dark-eyed maid, to bring, with soundless foot,
The lulling potion, and the healing root;
No tender look, to meet his wandering gaze,—
No tone of fondness heard in happier days,
To soothe the terrors of the spirit's flight,
And speak of mercy, and of hope--to night!
All love all leave him; terrible and slow,
Along the crowd, the whispered murmurs grow,
"The hand of Heaven is on him, is it ours,
To check the fleeting of his numbered hours?
Oh! not to us-oh! not to us, is given
To read the Book, and thwart the will of Heaven!
Away, away!" and each familiar face
Recoils in horror from his sad embrace.
The turf on which he lies is hallowed ground,
The sullen priest stalks gloomily around;--
And shuddering friends, that dare not soothe or save→→ Hear the last groan, and dig the destined grave.
The frantic widow folds upon her breast,
The glittering trinkets, and her gorgeous vest,
Circles her neck with many a mystic charm,-
Clasps the rich bracelet on her desperate arm,
Binds her black hair, and stains her eyelids' fringe
With the jet lustre of the Emew's tinge:
Then, on the spot, where those dear ashes lie,
In bitter transport sits her down to die.
Her sorrowing kindred mark the wasted cheek,
The straining eye-ball and the stifled shriek;
And sing the praises of her deathless name,
As the last flutter racks her tortured frame.
They sleep together o'er the natural tomb,
The lichened pine rears up its form of gloom,
And long acacias shed their shadows grey,
Bloomless and leafless o'er the buried clay,
And often there, when calmly, coldly bright,
The midnight moon flings down her ghastly light;
With solemn murmur, and with silent tread,
The prayer
is murmured, and the verse is said.
And sights of wonder-sounds of spectral fear-
Scare the quick glance, and chill the startled ear;
Yet direr visions e'en than these remain,
A fiercer guiltiness, a fouler stain :
Oh! who shall sing the scene of savage strife,
Where hatred glories in the waste of life,
The hurried match, the looks of grim delight-
The yell, the rush, the slaughter, and the flight,-
The arins, unwearied in the cruel toil
The hoarded vengeance, and the rifled spoil;
And, last of all, the revel in the wood-
The feast of death--the banqueting of blood;
When the wild warrior gazes on his foe,
Convulsed beneath him, in his painful throe,
And lifts the knife, and kneels him down to drain,
The purple current from the quivering vein.
Cease, cease the tale! And let the ocean's roll,
Shut the dark horror from my 'wildered soul!
And are there none to succour, none to speed
A fairer feeling, and a holier creed?
Alas! for this! Upon the ocean blue,
Lamented Cook, thy pennon hither flew !
For this undaunted o'er the raging brine,
The venturous Frank upheld his Saviour's sign;
Unhappy chief, while fancy thus surveys,
The scattered inlets, and the sparkling bays,
Beneath whose cloudless sky, and gorgeous sun,
Thy life was ended, and thy voyage done;
In shadowy mist, thy form appears to glide,
Haunting the grove, or floating on the tide;
Oh! there was grief for thee, and bitter tears,
And racking doubts, through long and joyless years,
And tender tongues that babbled of the theme→→
And lonely hearts, that doated on the dream-
Pale memory deemed she saw thy cherished form
Snatched from the foe, or rescued from the storm;
And faithful love, unfailing and untired,
Clung to each hope, and sighed as each expired,
On the black desart, or the tombless sea,
No prayer was said no requiem sung for thee;
Affection knows not, whether o'er thy grave,
The ocean murmurs, or the willows wave,
But still the beacon of thy sacred name,
Lights ardent souls to virtue and to fame;
Still science mourns thee, and the grateful muse,
Wreathes the green cypress, for her own Peyrouse;
But not thy death shall mar the gracious plan,
Nor check the task thy pious toil began:
O'er the wide waters of the bounding main,
The Book of Life, shall win its way again;
And in the regions by thy face endeared,
The Cross be lifted, and the Altar reared.
With furrowed brow and cheek serenely fair,
The calm wind wandering o'er his silver hair;
His arm uplifted and his moistened eye,
Fixed in deep rapture on the molten sky,
Upon the shore, thro' many a billow driven,
He kneels at last, the messenger of Heaven.
Long years that rank the mighty with the weak,
Have dimm'd the flush upon his faded cheek;
And inany a dew and many a noxious damp,
The daily labour and the nightly lamp
Have reft away, for ever reft for him,
The liquid accent, and the buoyant limb,
Yet still within him aspirations swell,
Which time corrupts not-sorrows cannot quell;
The changeless zeal, which on from land to land,
Speeds the faint foot, and nerves the withered hand;
And the mild charity, which day by day,
Weeps every wound and every stain away-
Rears the young bird on many a blighted stem,
And longs to comfort, where she must condemn;
With these, through storms, and bitterness, and wrath,
In peace and power, he holds his onward path
* From the coast of Australasia, the last despatches of La Peyrouse were dated.
Curbs the fierce soul, and sheathes the murderous steel,
And calms the passions she has ceased to feel.
Yes, he hath triumphed !-while his lips relate
The sacred story of his Saviour's fate-
While to the search of that tumultuous horde,
He opens wide, the everlasting word,
And bids the soul drink deep of wisdom there,
In fond devotion, and in fervent prayer;
In speechless awe the wonder-stricken throng,
Check their rude feasting, and their barbarous song.
Around his steps the gathering myriads crowd,
The chief-the slave-the timid, and the proud,
Of various features, and of various dress,
Like their own forest leaves, confused and numberless,
Where shall your temples-where your worship be,
Gods of the Air, and Rulers of the Sea?
In the glad dawning of a kinder light,
Your blind adorer quits your gloomy rite,
And kneels in gladness on his native plain,
A happier votary at a holier fane.
Beautiful land, farewell! when toil and strife,
And all the sighs, and all the sins of life.
Shall come about me-when the light of truth
Shall scatter the bright mists, that dazzled youth;
And memory muse in sadness o'er the past,
And mourn for pleasures far too sweet to last:--
How often shall I long for some dear spot,
Where not remembering, and remembered not;
With no false verse to deck my lying bust-
With no fond tear to vex my mouldering dust,
This busy brain may find its grassy shrine,
And sleep untroubled in a shade like thine,
The devotees of licentiousness may descant, as they please, on Bachelors' freedom, and the constraint that a nuptial union imposes; but, could they imagine a one-hundredth portion of the calm delight and the respectable contentment, which is to be enjoyed only by a virtuous alliance of the sexes, they would cease to deny, and be ambitious to solemnize it.
That woman was created for man's solace is indisputable; and, no less certain is the fact, that she is essential to his happiness: for, (as the "Bard of Hope" most beautifully sings)
"The world was all a blank, the garden a wild,
And man, the hermit, mourn'd 'ti!l woman smiled."
But all women do not smile as Eve did, with unaffected love and cloudless innocence, and all men do not, like the human father of us all, approach the bower of amatory consummation with singleness of heart, and an unvitiated purpose. Hence, the apathy, the feuds, and the unfaithfulness, by which too many modern marriages are at once sullied, cursed, and made contemptible. "In these last days" of mock refinement passion supersedes principle-and interest, integrity. Even parents, to their lasting shame, make the connubial contracts of their sons and daughters a matter of pecuniary consideration. Can it be wondered at, therefore, that such contracts become cancelled by temptation?-that wives elope ?-or that husbands dissipate their finances and constitution in the purlieus of Cyprian salaciousness?-Certainly, it cannot.
Still, such unnatural connexions as those just adverted to, by no means form a standard of connubial happiness-of that serene and dignified state,
"Which makes a perfect heaven on earth,
When hands and hearts combine;"
for if, as an exceedingly affecting writer assures us, and as my own experimental conviction confirms,
"There is no place like home,"
then, I contend (all fearless of refutation) that home is never lovely, so deliciously influential, and so sacred, as when its blazing hearth is rendered additionally brilliant by the affectionate smiles of an endeared and endearing wife, who, as the infantile pledge of a sacred intercourse is imbibing nature's pure nutriment from her spotless bosom, or, slumbering upon her maternal knee, feels sexually dignified as its honorable mother, and, looks up with rapture to her enamoured spouse, as to its legitimate and permanently unfailing defender.
"Who shall be our companions now !”
Who shall be our companions now?
Since death's unerring shafts have flown,
To those, who only could bestow,
The pleasures we have ever known.
Who shall be our companions now?
To share our joys, to heal our woes,
Since they of happy heart and brow,
Within the narrow grave repose.
Shall we forget the joyous hours,
When boyhood in its fairy prime,
Sought laughing for the brightest flowers,
To wreathe around the scythe of Time?
Shall we forget 'twas they who knelt,
With us upon the self same sod,
And prayers, in which devotion dwelt,
We poured in innocence to God?
Oh, no!-the memory of the dead,
Close, close within our hearts we'll set,
And, while each other joy is fled,
We'll cherish as an amulet.
And oft, beneath the evening sky,
We'll stray where rests each lovely brow,
To shed a tear, and breathe a sigh-
Who shall be our companions now?
"The Village Green.”
Oh, yes! we do remember well,
The happy childhood's hours,
When free from care, and full of joy,
We sought the woodland flowers.
And to our young companions told,
Of blossoms we had seen,
Pouring our new-found treasures forth,
Upon the village green.
And when our mothers call'd us home,
Because 'twas even time,
How we entreated oft to stay,
And hear the village-chime;
Then, for the morrow, forming plans,
More gay than yet had been,
We parted with a smile of joy,
Upon the village green.
Tho' in a far and distant land,
Through mingled good and ill,
Those happy times-that happy place,
Clings to our memory still.
And tho' a dark and saddening thought,
May sometimes intervene,
It cannot cast a gloomy shade,
Upon the village green.
JOURNAL OF AN ENGLISH GENTLEMAN,
Who travelled through Holland, Germany, Switzerland, Flanders and Italy, at the commencement of the last century.
LEYDEN Leyden is very ancient, and there are still left some marks of its antiquity; but that which at present renders it most
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