On! on! with the banners we love waving o'er us, And the friends of our hearts pressing round to defend us!

Disgrace is behind and glory before us ;

The blessings of Heaven and Scotland attend us!

There's a sigh for the names of the dead! For the brave men whose spirits have gone! They fell in the flush of the fight that they won; There's a sigh for the names of the dead!

There's a tear o'er the graves of the dead! Where they sleep their calm death-sleep at last; Their memory is here, though their footsteps have passed,

There's a tear o'er the graves of the dead!

A MOTHER'S LOVE.*

A MOTHER'S love! a mother's love!
That sound of holy loveliness!
All know full well, - but few can tell,
How full of heaven and joy it is!

A mother's love, when sickness comes,
With all its train of feverish ill,

To blight and wither up the soul,-
Yes! even in death,—is with us still!

Across life's dark and troublous water,
Amid the gloom, there shines from far
A bright, unflickering blaze of light,
A mother's love's bright beacon star!

My mother on my dying bed

Thy hand shall smooth my weary pillow, And on my cold, cold grave, at last Shall plant the stilly weeping willow!

* Written, probably, at sixteen.

ORIGIN OF THE NIGHT-BLOOMING CEREUS.

LONG-long ago,

ere poets sung,

While heaven was bright, and earth was young,
When man was pure, and angels' eyes

Gazed on the sweets of Paradise, –

'Twas then, within a jasmine bower,
A seraph paused at evening hour,
To listen, as it swelled along,

To heaven and earth's commingled song.

Refused to breathe that seraph song ;
One sin had passed his holy breast,
And robbed it of its wonted rest.

He looked to heaven, - but heaven was dim,

Its music had no charms for him;

Rich sounds through its bright courts were stealing, His harp was hushed, his heart unfeeling.

He knelt, and in a burning prayer,

Poured his whole soul in sorrowing there;
He raised his tearful eyes to heaven,—

He wept, and prayed, and was forgiven.

And where (as angels' legends tell)
Those tears of deep repentance fell,

Amid the perfume of that bower,

There sprang this nightly blooming flower.

And still, on each returning year,

The night he shed that sorrowing tear,
It spreads its beauteous leaves to heaven,
The emblem of a sin forgiven.

A FRAGMENT.

The contest was unequal;

For mightier minds rose up, and purer hearts
Rose up, with all the sympathies of men,
And with the blessing of the GoD of truth,
The favored champions of Righteousness.
That was a glorious day for Virtue's cause,
That saw the meeting of conflicting minds,
Host against host, and banner against banner,
The triumph of the cause of GOD and man.

SWITZERLAND.*

'T was night; for nature's self had sunk to rest, And stillness hung o'er mountain, lake, and plain : Man slumbered, and forgot the cares of life, Since all around was hushed to quietness; And all was silent as the trackless wild. There came no moan upon the passing breeze, The moon looked out upon the stilly scene, And winds forgot to howl around the cliffs, · Their olden haunts, while sporting with her beams. Night's dewy showers fell fast; — and, where at eve I viewed the glories of a western sun,

Bright stars were twinkling in the azure sky,
And from their lofty thrones smiled sweetly o'er
The land beneath. No rampart height, or tower,
No massive fortress, told the tyrant's home;
Its only bulwark was the freeman's breast,
To his true steel and Heaven it left the rest.

I stood upon the Alps, - boast of the Swiss, That reared their shapeless craggy tops on high, And seemed to mock the pigmy works of man, One rocky mass, one heaven-aspiring height, That left the feeble worldling at its base

To grovel on upon polluted earth,

While it sought converse with a higher world, ·

* Written at sixteen, and delivered at a Junior Exhibition, April 10th,

1829.