Trembling with joy, awhile she stood,
And felt the sun's enlivening ray,
Drank from the breeze the vital flood,
And wonder'd at her plumage gay.
And balanced oft her broider'd wings, Through fields of air prepared to sail ; Then on her venturous journey springs, And floats along the vernal gale.
Go! child of pleasure, range the fields, Share all the joys that Spring can give; Partake what bounteous Summer yields, And live while yet 'tis time to live.
Go, sip the rose's fragrant dew,
The lily's honey'd cup explore; From flower to flower, the search renew, And rifle all the woodbine's store.
And let me trace thy vagrant flight,
Thy moments, too, of short repose;
And mark thee then, with fresh delight,
Thy golden pinions ope and close.
But hark! while thus I musing stand,
Swells on the gale an airy note,
And, breathing from a viewless band,
Soft, silvery tones around me float.
They cease; but still a voice I hear,
A whisper'd voice of hope and joy; "Thy fated hour approaches near, Prepare thee, Mortal! thou must die!
Yet start not on thy closing eyes,
Another day shall still unfold,
A sun of brighter radiance rise,
A happier age of joys untold.
Shall the poor worm, that shocks thy sight,
The humblest form in Nature's train,
Thus rise again to life and light,
And yet the emblem teach in vain?
Ah, where were once her golden eyes,
Her beauteous wings of purple pride?
Concealed beneath a rude disguise,
A shapeless man, to earth allied.
Like thee this happy reptile lived,
Like thee he toil'd, like thee he spun;
Like thine his closing hour arrived,
His labour ceased, his web was done.
And shalt thou, number'd with the dead,
No happier state of being know?
And shall no future morrow shed
On thee a beam of brighter glow?
Is this the bound of power divine,
To animate an insect frame?
Or may not he who moulded thine
Relume at will the vital flame?
Go, Mortal! in thy reptile state,
Enough to know to thee
Go, and the joyful truth relate,
Frail child of earth, high heir to heaven!"
At the corner of Wood-street, when day-light appears, There's a thrush that sings loud, it has sung for three
Poor Susan has pass'd by the spot, and has heard
In the silence of morning the song of the bird.
"Tis a note of enchantment; what ails her? She sees A mountain ascending, a vision of trees;
Bright volumes of vapour through Lothbury glide, And a river flows on through the vale of Cheapside.
Green pastures she views in the midst of the dale,
Down which she so often has tripp'd with her pail;
And a single small cottage, a nest like a dove's,
The only one dwelling on earth that she loves.
She looks, and her heart is in Heaven;-but they fade,
The mist and the river, the hill and the shade;
The stream will not flow, and the hill will not rise,
And the colours have all pass'd away from her eyes.
WORDSWORTH.
ON THE DEATH OF THE PRINCESS
CHARLOTTE.
HARK! forth from the abyss a voice proceeds,
A long low distant murmur of dread sound,
Such as arises when a nation bleeds
With some deep and immedicable wound; Through storm and darkness yawns the rending ground,
The gulf is thick with phantoms, but the chief
Seems royal still, though with her head discrown'd,
And pale, but lovely with maternal grief,
She clasps a babe, to whom her breast yields no relief.
Scion of chiefs and monarchs, where art thou?
Fond hope of many nations, art thou dead?
Could not the grave forget thee, and lay low
Some less majestic, less beloved head?
In the sad midnight, while my heart still bled,
The mother of a moment, o'er thy boy,
Death hush'd that pang for ever: with thee fled
The present happiness and promised joy
Which fill'd the imperial isles so full it seem'd to cloy.
Peasants bring forth in safety.-Can it be,
Oh thou that wert so happy, so adored!
Those who weep not for kings shall weep for thee,
And Freedom's heart, grown heavy, cease to hoard
Her many griefs for ONE; for she had pour'd
Her orisons for thee, and o'er thy head
Beheld her Iris.-Thou, too, lonely lord,
And desolate consort-vainly wert thou wed;
The husband of a year! the father of the dead!
Of sackcloth was thy wedding garment made;
Thy bridal's fruit is ashes: in the dust
The fair-hair'd daughter of the isles is laid,
The love of millions! How we did intrust
Futurity to her! and, though it must
Darken above our bones, yet fondly deem'd
Our children should obey her child, and bless'd
Her and her hoped-for seed, whose promise seem'd
Like stars to shepherds' eyes:-'t was but a meteor
deem'd.
MEDORA'S DEATH.
His steps the chamber gain-his eyes behold
All that his heart believed not-yet foretold!
He turn'd not-spoke not, sunk not-fix'd his look,
And set the anxious frame that lately shook:
He gazed-how long we gaze despite of pain,
And know-but dare not own, we gaze in vain ;
In life itself, she was so still and fair,
That death with gentler aspect wither'd there;
And the cold flowers her colder hand contain'd,
In that last gasp as tenderly were strain'd
As if she scarcely felt, but feign'd a sleep,
And made it almost mockery yet to weep:
The long dark lashes fringed her lids of snow-
And veil'd-thought shrinks from all that lurks
below-
Oh! o'er the eye Death most exerts his might,
And hurls the spirit from her throne of light!
Sinks those blue orbs in that last long eclipse,
But spares, as yet, the charm around her lips!
Yet-yet they seem, as they forbore to smile,
And wish'd repose-but only for a while;
But the white shroud, and each extended tress,
Long-fair-but spread in utter lifelessness,
Which, late the sport of every summer wind,
Escaped the baffled wreath that strove to bind;
These-and the pale pure cheek, became the bier.
But she is nothing-wherefore is he here?
PALACE of beauty! where the Moorish lord,
King of the bow, the bridle, and the sword,
Sat like a genie in the diamond's blaze.
Oh! to have seen thee in the ancient days,
When at thy morning gates the coursers stood,
The "thousand," milk-white, Yemen's fiery blood,
In pearl and ruby harness'd for the king;
And through thy portals pour'd the gorgeous flood
Of jewell'd Sheik and Emir hastening,
Before the sky the dawning purple show'd,
Their turbans at the Caliph's feet to fling.
Lovely thy morn-thy evening lovelier still,
When at the waking of the first blue star
That trembled on the Atalaya hill,
The splendours of the trumpet's voice arose,
Brilliant and bold, and yet no sound of war;
It summon'd all thy beauty from repose,
The shaded slumber of the burning noon.
Then in the slant sun all thy fountains shone,
Shooting the sparkling column from the vase
Of crystal cool, and falling in a haze
Of rainbow hues on floors of porphyry,
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