Page images
PDF
EPUB

In turn, I'd soften all her care,

Each thought, each wish, each feeling share,
Should sickness e'er invade,

My voice should soothe each rising sigh,
My hand the cordial should supply;
I'd watch beside her bed.

Should gathering clouds our sky deform,
My arms should shield her from the storm,
And, were its fury hurl'd,
My bosom to its bolts I'd bare,
In her defence undaunted dare
Defy the opposing world.

Together should our prayers ascend,
Together humbly would we bend,
To praise the Almighty name;
And when I saw her kindling eye
Beam upwards to her native sky,

My soul should catch the flaine.

Thus nothing should our hearts divide,
But on our years serenely glide,
And all to love be given;

And, when life's little scene was o'er
We'd part to meet and part no more,
But live and love in heaven.

PROFESSOR FRISBIE.

[ocr errors]

"ONLY THIS ONCE."

EXODUS X. 17.

Only this once,"-the wine-cup glow'd
All sparkling with its ruby ray,
The Bacchanalian welcome flow'd,
And folly made the revel gay.

Then he, so long, so deeply warn'd,
The sway of conscience rashly spurn'd,
His promise of repentance scorn'd,

66

And coward-like to vice return'd.

'Only this once.'
e."-The tale is told.

He wildly quaff'd the poisonous tide,
With more than Esau's madness sold
The birth-right of his soul-and died.

I do not say that breath forsook
The clay, and left its pulses dead,
But reason in her empire shook,
And all the light of life was fled.

Again his eyes the landscape view'd,
His limbs again their burden bore,
And years their wonted course renew'd,
But hope and peace return'd no more.

And angel-eyes with pity wept

When he whom virtue fain would save, His sacred vow so falsely kept,

And strangely sought a drunkard's grave

"Only this once."-Beware,-beware!Gaze not upon the blushing wine, Repel temptation's syren snare,

And prayerful seek for strength divine

MRS. SIGOURNEY

ETERNITY.

SEE, how beneath the moonbeam's smi.
Yon little billow heaves its breast,

And foams and sparkles for a while,
And murmuring then subsides to res

Thus man, the sport of bliss and care,
Rises on time's eventful sea;

And having swell'd a moment there,
Thus melts into eternity!

MOORE.

TO MUSIC.

QUEEN of every moving measure!
Sweetest source of purest pleasure!
Music! why thy powers employ
Only for the sons of Joy?
Only for the smiling guests
At natal or at nuptial feasts?
Rather thy lenient numbers pour
On those whom secret griefs devour;
Bid be still the throbbing hearts

Of those whom Death or Absence parts;
And with some softly whisper'd air
Smooth the brow of dumb Despair.

WARTON.

ON PARTING WITH MY BOOKS.

YE dear companions of my silent hours,
Whose pages oft before my eyes would strew
So many sweet and variegated flowers--
Dear Books, awhile, perhaps for aye, adieu!
The dark cloud of misfortune o'er me lowers:
No more by winter's fire-in summer's bowers,
My toil-worn mind shall be refresh'd by you:
We part: sad thought! and while the damp devours
Your leaves, and the worm slowly eats them through,
Dull Poverty and its attendant ills,

Wasting of health, vain toil, corroding care,
And the world's cold neglect, which surest kills,
Must be my bitter doom; yet I shall bear

Unmurmuring, for my good perchance these evils

are.

HUNT.

THE SEA.

WRITTEN ON VISITING IT AFTER A LONG ABSENCE

THE sun breaks through the snow-white haze
That melts before his glowing light,

On ocean, gilding with his blaze

A path insufferably bright.

Let those that may, the green land prize,
The meads and woods of thousand dyes;
Far nobler is the sight I see-

The sea, the sea for me!

How glorious on its flashing breast,
Unsullied in their dye,

The heavens on the bright waters rest
Their star-spread canopy!-
How Love is emblem'd in the scene,
As at the birth of his own queen:
Grand in its vast tranquillity-

The sea, the sea for me!

But when in anger tempest-driven,
The impending billows nod,
And tell in accents thunder-given
The majesty of God,-

Tearing the solid clifts apart,

And knocking at the boldest heart:
Who feels not his humility?
The sea, the sea for me!

Those reinless waters haughtily
Bear their white crests along;
Fierce in the power of liberty,

In their own freedom strong;-
Scornful they jeer at human pride,
Strewing its wrecks upon their tide:

The shore is man's, the waves are freeThe sea, the sea for me!

I was a child when first I laid
My bosom on its foam,

And all my youthful years I made
Its shores and rocks my home;
I dash'd among its breakers white,
And breathed their freshness with delight
They often soothed my misery-

The sea, the sea for me!

Absence of years doth but increase
My fondness for the deep,
And I could wish in its embrace,
When life is o'er, to sleep-
Uncoffin'd, and without a dirge,
Flung in the unfathomable surge,
Buried in its immensity:-

The sea, the sea for me!

And now I part from thee with pain,
Nature's primeval child,

For haply I may ne'er again

List to thy music wild;

Sit on thy marge and gaze away

Hours on thy hoary sparkling spray,

Dwelling upon strange thoughts of thee.The sea, the sea for me!

Farewell! thou wonder of the earth,

Coeval, perhaps, with time,

That swept, ere yon bright orb had birth,

Thy foam o'er every clime

« PreviousContinue »