He sat upon the orb of fire
That hung for ages there;
And lent his music to the choir
That haunts the nightly air.
But when his thousand years were past,
With a cherubic sigh
He vanish'd with his car at last-
For even cherubs die.
Hark how his angel-brethren mourn,
The minstrels of the spheres!
Each chiming sadly in his turn,
And dropping splendid tears.
The planetary sisters all
Join in the mournful song,
And weep their hapless brother's fall
Who sang with them so long.
But deepest of the choral band
The lunar Spirit sings,
And with a bass-according hand
Sweeps all her sullen strings.
From the bright chambers of the dome
Where sleepless Uriel lies,
His rude harmonic thunders come
Mingled with mighty sighs.
The thousand car-bound cherubim,
The wandering Eleven,
All join to chant the dirge of him
Who fell just now from heaven.
TO HER DAUGHTER ADA.
THINE is the smile, and thine the bloom, Where hope might fancy ripen'd charms; But mine is dyed in memory's gloomThou art not in a father's arms!
And there I could have loved thee most,
And there have own'd thou wert so dear,
That, though my worldly all were lost,
I still had felt my life was here!
What art thou now?-A monument,
Which rose to weep o'er buried love;—
A fond and filial mourner, sent
To dream of ties, restored above!
Thou, Dove! who may'st not find a rest,
Save in this frail and shatter'd bark,
A lonely mother's offer'd breast,-
May Heaven provide a surer ark,
To bear thee over Sorrow's waves,
Which deluge still this world below!
Till thou, through Him alone that saves,
A holier Ararat shalt know.
Nor think me frozen, if for thee
No earthly wish now claims a part— Too dear such wish; too vain to me; Thou art not in a father's heart!
THE dove let loose in eastern skies,
Returning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam;
But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay;
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
So grant me, God, from earthly care
From pride and passion free,
Aloft, through faith and love's pure air,
To hold my course to thee.
No lure to tempt, no art to stay
My soul, as home she springs;
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom on her wings.
INFLUENCE OF HOPE ON THE MIND.
AT summer eve, when Heaven's aërial bow
Spans with bright arch the glittering fields below,
Why to yon mountain turns the musing eye,
Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky?
Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear
More sweet than all the landscape smiling near?-
"Tis distance lends enchantment to the view,
And robes the mountain of its azure hue.
Thus with delight we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way,
Thus from afar each dim-discover'd scene
More pleasing seems than all the past hath been!
And every form, that Fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.
What potent spirit guides the raptured eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?
Ah! no; she darkly sees the fate of man-
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;
Or, if she hold an image to the view,
"Tis Nature pictured too severely true.
With thee, sweet Hope, resides the heavenly light
That pours remotest rapture on the sight;
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way,
That calls each slumb'ring passion into play.
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career.
Primeval Hope, the Aönian Muses say,
When Man and Nature mourn'd their first decay,
When every form of death and every woe
Shot from malignant stars to earth below,
When Murder bared her arm, and rampant War
Yoked the red dragons of her iron car,
And Peace and Mercy, banish'd from the plain,
Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again-
All, all forsook the friendless guilty mind,
But Hope, the charmer, linger'd still behind.
Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare
From Carmel's height to sweep the fields of air,
The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began,
Dropt on the world-a sacred gift to man.
Auspicious Hope! in thy sweet garden grow
Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe:
Won by their sweets, in nature's languid hour,
The wayworn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower;
There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing,
What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
What viewless forms th' Eolian organ play,
And sweep the furrow'd lines of anxious thought
REFLECTIONS ON HAVING LEFT A PLACE
OF RETIREMENT.
Low was our pretty Cot: our tallest rose
Peep'd at the chamber window. We could hear,
At silent noon, and eve, and early morn,
The Sea's faint murmur. In the open air
Our myrtles blossom'd, and across the porch
Thick jasmines twined: the little landscape round
Was green and woody, and refresh'd the eye.
It was a spot which you might aptly call
The VALLEY of SECLUSION! Once I saw
(Hallowing the Sabbath-day by quietness)
A wealthy son of commerce saunter by,
Bristowa's citizen: methought it calm'd
His thirst of gold, and made him muse
With wiser feelings: for he paused, and look'd
With a pleased sadness, and gazed all around,
Then eyed our Cottage, and gazed round again,
And sigh'd, and said, it was a Blessed Place.
And we were bless'd. Oft with a patient ear,
Long-list'ning to the viewless sky-lark's note
(Viewless, or haply for a moment seen
Gleaming on sunny wing) in whisper'd tones
I've said to my beloved, "Such, sweet girl!
The unobtrusive song of Happiness,
Unearthly minstrelsy! then only heard
When the soul seeks to hear; when all is hush'd,
And the Heart listens !"
But the time, when first From that lone dell, steep up the stony mount I climb'd with perilous toil, and reach'd the top, Oh! what a goodly scene! Here the bleak mount, The bare bleak mountain speckled thin with sheep, Gray clouds, that shadowing spot the sunny fields; And river, now with bushy rocks o'erbrow'd, Now winding bright and full, with naked banks, And seats and lawns, the abbey, and the wood,
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