Created, bids thy soul with homage swell.
For music like a warbling seraph flings
Entrancement round thee, till thy feelings melt
As fading darkness, when by light subdued;
A living picture, like a passion pour
Delight into thine eye; and Poesy,
It stamp'à thy mind, and colours all thy thoughts!
To have thy glory on the chart of time
Recorded, mapp'd in deep and dazzling lines,
And thus be deathless in the fame, the power
And offspring of creative soul; to build
A monument of mind, on which the good
May gaze, while future ages round it bend
With homage nobler than a king commands,—
Desire so godlike is for ever warm
And panting in thy breast; and oft, methinks
When darkness, like the death of light begins,
Beneath the lone magnificence of heaven,
While planets glow oracularly bright,—
Ambition dreams, and Hope, the charmer, smiles!
But, oh! thou victim of a mental curse,
The fire and fever of the soul are thine,
That burn within, like desolation's breath!
Body and mind, before they bloom, decay;
And ere upon the seat of high renown
The banner of thy fame exulting waves-
Lost in the tomb, thy buried hopes will lie,
And o'er thy name oblivion's pall descend!
The path to glory is a path of death
To feeling hearts, all gifted though they be,
And martyrs to the genius they adore :
The wear of passion, and the waste of thought,
The glow of inspiration, and the gloom
That like a night-shade mars the brightest hour,—
And that fierce rack on which a faithless world
Will make thee writhe-all these ennerving pangs,
With agonies that mock the might of words,
Thou canst not bear-thy temple is a tomb !—
THOU grandest region of the varied globe,
Where all the climates dwell, and Nature moves
In majesty,-hereafter, when the tides
Of circumstance have rolled their changing years
What empires may be born of thee!-thy ships
By thousands, dancing o'er the isle-strewn deep;
Thy banners waved in every land. E'en now
Defiance flashes from thy fearless eye,
While Nature tells thee, greatness is thine own.-
Who on those dreadful giants of the South,
Those pyramids, by the Creator rear'd,
Thine Andes, girdled with the storms, can gaze ;
Or hear Niagara's unearthly might
Leap downward in a dash of proud despair,
Mocking the thunder with impassion'd sound,—
Nor think the Spirit of Ambition wakes
From each free glory?—what a grandeur lives
Through each stern scene!-in yon Canadian woods,
Whose stately poplars clothe their heads with
And dignify creation as they stand: [clouds,
Or in the rain-floods,-rivers where they fall!
Or hurricanes, that howl themselves along,
Like winged monsters, ravenously wild;—
Sublimity o'er all her soul hath breathed,
And yet, a curse is on thee !-'tis the curse
Of havoc, which the violators reap'd
For thy young destiny, when first amid
Thy wilds the cannon pour'd its thund'ring awe,
Shaking the trees that never yet had bow'd,
Save to the storminess of Nature's ire.
AN ADMIRER OF NATURE.
In vain the witchery of words would tell
How deeply with the universe he shared,
To all of which he seem'd enlink'd by love.—
The hues and harmonies of blended things
Were beauty, to the magic of his mind :
And all the thousand wheels of moving life
Made intellectual melodies that roll'd
For ever to the charming of his soul !
Such warm imaginings, where'er he came,
A glittering falseness on the true and stern
Suffused; and through the light of feeling shone
The scene of Earth, and countenance of Heaven.-
The young enchantment of angelic spring
Flow'd in his veins, voluptuously deep.
The gentle being of a flower was dear
To him, nor would he tread its life away;
Nor wander in the soundless gloom of dell
"The Spaniards conquered the islands, and a great part of the continent of America. Stimulated by the thirst of gold, which the New World offered to them in abundance, they committed crimes and barbarities which make humanity shudder. Millions of the unfortunates were either massacred or buried in the sea."-C. KocH's Revolution, translated by Crichton.
Or grove, without a sympathetic hush.
And oh! to view him when the balmy night
Breathed o'er the quiet world, and from her throne
The lustrous moon on tree and temple pour'd
The pallid radiance, of her peaceful smile,-
In the full worship of his soul he seem'd
Dissolving in the loveliness around!
ADDISON AND STEELE.
ERE Steele began what Addison pursued,
A path still fresh with England's gratitude,
Those day-born graces whose refinement blends
The charm of manner with the soul of friends,
La Casa first in Italy awoke,
And sketch'd the courtier with a master stroke;
But next the Gallic Theophrastus* threw
A playful archness o'er the scene he drew,
Dissected truth with satire's keenest knife,
And mirror'd Nature on the glass of life:
Then rose on English ground the gifted pair
Who taught to either sex a softer air,
Proved elegance to virtue's self allied,
And laugh'd at dulness, till her follies died!
O'er weeds and thorns that social life beset,
And tease their martyr into vain regret,
Their morning smile satirically pass'd,
Till fools turn'd wise, and fops were cured at last!
Nor small the debt Society should pay
To him who flaps her buzzing flies away;
Those noisome insects on eternal wing,
That hum at banquets, or in ball-rooms sting,
Which, though they cannot heart or mind o'erpow'r,
May fret the smoothness of the calmest hour.
ALL NATURE PROCLAIMS A DEITY. THERE is a voiceless eloquence on Earth, Telling of Him who gave her wonders birth; And long may I remain th' adoring child Of Nature's majesty, sublime or wild ; Hill, flood, and forest, mountain, rock, and sea, All take their terrors, or their charms from Thee, From Thee, whose hidden but supreme control Moves through the world, a universal soul.
But who could trace Thine unrestricted course, Though Fancy followed with immortal force? There's not a blossom fondled by the breeze, There's not a fruit that beautifies the trees, There's not a particle in sea or air,
But Nature owns thy plastic influence there!
With fearful gaze, still be it mine to see
How all is fill'd and vivified by Thee;
Upon thy mirror, earth's majestic view,
To paint Thy Presence, and to feel it too.
A FINE MORNING IN SUMMER.
THE night hath drows'd, the revelry is o'er,
And Nature woos me. Through the orient heaven
A dawn advances, like a shining sea;
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