Each eye will turn to Childhood's years,
'Each heart be inly stirred,
And the same sounds be in his ears,
'As in those days he heard ;'
While simple feelings, guileless thought,
Affections, long grown dim,
Return, with all the freshness fraught,
They bore in youth for him.
First friendships rising on his soul,
As once they rose before;
Then shed awhile the sweet controul
They now can shed no more!
And so will manhood's brow be calm,
And age's heart be light;
For these are memories 'breathing balm ;'
These, memories ever bright.
Oh Youth! thou spring of human life,
First, fairest of our dreams!
How lovely, 'midst this world's dire strife,
Thy rainbow-beauty, seems!
Thy unworn soul, all dewy-bright,
And opening like a flower!
But ah! it droops and closes quite,
In age's evening hour!
Frail, fair possession!-Yet I know
Thy frailty wisely given ;-
For beings always young below,
Would never seek for heaven!
If e'er by words can be expressed
The mind of man when broken hearted, Or sighs or tears console the breast
From what it loves for ever parted;
Then every grief I have to tell,
'Mid sighs just breathed and tears just started, Read thou in this wild word Farewell!
DUTY and Pleasure, long at strife,
Crossed in the common walks of life;-
'Pray don't disturb me, get you gone,'
Cries Duty, with a serious tone:
Then, with a smile; keep off, my dear,
Nor force me thus to be severe.'
'Dear Sir,' cries Pleasure, 'you're so grave;
You make yourself a perfect slave:
I can't think why we disagree;
You may turn Methodist for me:
But, if you'll neither laugh nor play,
At least dont't stop me on my way;
Yet sure one moment you might steal,
To see the lovely Miss O'Neil:
One hour to relaxation give;
Oh! lend one hour from life-to live!
And here's a bird, and there's a flower ;-
Dear Duty, walk a little slower.'
'My morning's task is not half done,'
Cries Duty with an inward groan;
"False colours on each object spread,
I know not whence, or where, I'm led!
Your boasted Pleasures mount the wind,
And leave their venomed stings behind.
Where are you flown ?'-Voices around
Cry, Pleasure long hath left this ground;
Old Age advances; haste away!
Nor lose the light of parting day.
See Sickness follows; Sorrow threats;-
Waste no more time in vain regrets:
O Duty! one more effort given
May reach perhaps the gates of heaven,
Where, only, each with each delighted,
Pleasure and Duty live united!'
Is she not beautiful, although so pale?
The first May flowers are not more colourless
Than her white cheek; yet I recal the time
When she was called the rosebud of our village.
There was a blush, half modesty, half health,
Upon her cheek, fresh as the summer morn
With which she rose ;—a cloud of chesnut curls,
Like twilight, darkened o'er her blue-veined brow;
And through their hazel curtains, eyes, whose light
Was like the violet's, when April skies
Have given their own pure colour to the leaves,
Shone sweet and silent, as the twilight star.
And she was happy :-innocence and hope
Make the young heart a paradise for love.
And she was loved, and loved. The youth was one
That dwelled on the waters. He had been
Where sweeps the blue Atlantic, a wide world ;—
Had seen the sun light up the flowers, like gems,
In the bright Indian isles ;-had breathed the air
When sweet with cinnamon, and gum, and spice.
But he said that no air brought health, or balm,
Like that on his own hills, when it had swept
O'er orchards in their bloom, or hedges, where
Blossomed the hawthorn and the honeysuckle;
That, but one voyage more, and he would come
To his dear Ellen and her cottage home—
Dwell there in love and peace. And then he kissed
Her tears away, talked of the pleasant years
Which they should pass together-of the pride
He would take in his constancy. Oh, hope
Is very eloquent! and as the hours
Passed by their fireside in calm cheerfulness,
Ellen forgot to weep.
Of parting came; 'twas the first month of Spring ;—
Like a green fan spread the horse-chesnut's leaves,
A shower of yellow bloom was on the elm,
The daisies shone like silver, and the boughs
Were covered with their blossoms, and the sky
Was like an augury of hope, so clear,
So beautifully blue. Love! oh young love!
Why hast thou not security! Thou art
Like a bright river, on whose course the weeds
Are thick and heavy; briers are on its banks,
And jagged stones and rocks are mid its waves.
Conscious of its own beauty, it will rush
Over its many obstacles, and pant
For some green valley, as its quiet home.
Alas! either it rushes with a desperate leap
Over its barriers, foaming passionate,
But prisoned still; or, winding languidly,
Becomes dark, like oblivion; or, else wastes
Itself away. This is love's history.
They parted one spring evening; the green sea
Had scarce a curl upon its wave; the ship
Rode like a queen of ocean. Ellen wept,
But not disconsolate, for she had hope ;-
She knew not then the bitterness of tears.
But night closed in, and with the night there came
Tempest upon the wind; the beacon light
Glared like a funeral pile; all else was black
And terrible as death. We heard a sound
Come from the ocean :-one lone signal gun,
Asking for help in vain-followed by shrieks,
Mocked by the ravening gale; then deepest silence.
Some gallant souls had perished. With the first
Dim light of morn, they sought the beach; and there Lay fragments of a ship, and human shapes,
Ghastly and gashed. But the worst sight of all
The sight of living misery met their gaze.
Seated upon a rock, drenched by the rain,
Her hair torn by the wind, there Ellen sat,
Pale, motionless. How could love guide her there?
A corpse lay by her; in her arms its head
Found a fond pillow, and o'er it she watched,
As the young mother watches her first child.-
It was her lover.-
Ackermann's 'Forget me not.'
TRANSLATED BY W. ROSCOE, ESQ.
THERE sat upon the linden tree
A bird, and sang its strain;
So sweet it sang, that as I heard
My heart went back again.
It went to one remembered spot,
It saw the rose-trees grow,
And thought again the thoughts of love,
There cherished long ago.
A thousand years to one it seems,
Since by my fair I sat ;
Yet thus to be a stranger long,
Is not my choice, but fate;
Since then I have not seen the flowers,
Nor heard the bird's sweet song:
My joys have all too briefly past,
My griefs been all too long.
*From Mr. T. Roscoe's Translation of Sismondi's Literature of the South of Europe.
|