And still I find her sitting here,
Though dark October frowns on all;
And from the lime-trees rustling near
The scattered leaves around her fall:
Oh, then it charms her inmost soul,
It suits the sadness of her mind,
To watch the clouds of autumn roll,
And listen to the evening wind;
In every shadow, every blast,
The spirits of enjoyments past,
She sees, she hears;-ah! then her eyes o'erflow,
Not with a mother's love, but with a widow's woe.
The peasant dreads a gathering storm,
Yet pauses as he hastens by,
Views the pale ruin of her form,
The desolation of her eye;
Beholds her babe for shelter creep
Behind the gravestone's dreary shade,
Where all its father's wishes sleep,
And all its mother's hopes are laid:
Remembering then his own heart's joy,
A rosy wife, a blooming boy,
Ah me!" he sighs, "when I am thus laid low, Must my poor partner fell a widowed mother's woe?"
He gently stretches out his arm,
And calls the babe in accents mild;
The mother shrieks with strange alarm,
And snatches up her weeping child:
She thought that voice of tender tone,
Those accents soft, endearing, kind,
Came from beneath the hollow stone!
-He marks the wandering of her mind,
And, musing on his happier lot,
Seeks the warm comforts of his cot;
He meets his wife;-ah! then his eyes o'erflow;
She feels a mother's love, nor dreads a widow's woe.
The storm retires;-and hark! the bird,
The lonely bird of autumn's reign,
From yonder waving elm is heard;
Oh, what a clear and simple strain!
See the delighted mourner start,
While Robin Redbreast's evening song,
Pours all its sweetness through her heart,
And soothes her as it trills along:
Then gleams her eye, her fancy hears
The warbled music of the spheres:
She clasps her babe; she feels her bosom glow,
And in a mother's love forgets a widow's woe.
Go to thine home, forsaken fair!
Go to thy solitary home;
Thou lovely pilgrim, in despair,
To thy saint's shrine no longer roam:
He rests not here;-thy soul's delight
Attends where'er thy footsteps tread;
He watches in the depth of night,
A guardian angel round thy bed;
And still a father, fondly kind,
Loves the dear pledge he left behind:
Behold that pledge, then cease thy tears to flow, And in the mother's love forget the widow's woe.
"Come like shadows, so depart."—Macbeth.
THE Diamond, in its native bed,
Hid like a buried star may lie,
Where foot of man must never tread,
Seen only by its Maker's eye:
And though imbued with beams to grace
His fairest work in woman's face,
Darkling, its fire may fill the void,
Where fixed at first in solid night,
Nor, till the world shall be destroyed,
Sparkle one moment into light.
The Plant, upspringing from the seed,.
Expands into a perfect flower;
The virgin daughter of the mead,
Wooed by the sun, the wind, the shower:
In loveliness beyond compare,
It toils not, spins not, knows no care;
Trained by the secret hand, that brings
All beauty out of waste and rude,
It blooms its season, dies, and flings
Its germs abroad in solitude.
Almighty skill, in ocean's caves,
Lends the light Nautilus a form To tilt along the Atlantic waves,
Fearless of rock, or shoal, or storm; But, should a breath of danger` sound, With sails quick furled it dives profound, And far beneath the tempest's path, In coral grots, defies the foe, That never brake, in heaviest wrath, The Sabbath of the deep below.
Up from his dream, on twinkling wings, The Sky-lark soars amid the dawn; Yet, while in Paradise he sings,
Looks down upon the quiet lawn, Where flutters, in his little nest, More love than music e'er expressed; Then, though the Nightingale may thrill The soul with keener ecstacy, The merry bird of morn can fill All Nature's bosom with its glee.
The Elephant, embowered in woods,
Coeval with their trees might seem,
As though he drank from Indian floods
Life in a renovating stream:
Ages o'er him have come and fled;
'Midst generations of the dead,
His bulk survives to feed and range,
Where ranged and fed of old his sires;
Nor knows advancement, lapse, or change, Beyond their walks, till he expires.
Gem, flower, and fish, the bird, the brute, Of every kind occult or known, (Each exquisitely formed to suit
Its humble lot, and that alone,) Through ocean, earth, and air fulfil, Unconsciously, their Maker's will,
Who gave, without their toil or thought, Strength, beauty, instinct, courage, speed; While through the whole His pleasure wrought Whate'er His wisdom had decreed.
But Man, the masterpiece of GOD,
Man, in his Maker's image framed,-
Though kindred to the valley's clod,
Lord of this low creation named,-
In naked helplessness appears,
Child of a thousand griefs and fears:
To labour, pain, and trouble born,
Weapon, nor wing, nor sleight hath he;
Yet, like the sun, he brings his morn,
And is a king from infancy.
For, him no destiny hath bound
To do what others did before,
Pace the same dull perennial round,
And be a man, and be no more:
A man?-a self-willed piece of earth,
Just as the lion is, by birth;
To hunt his prey, to wake, to sleep,
His father's joys and sorrows share,
His niche in Nature's temple keep,
And leave his likeness in his heir!—
No: infinite the shades between
The motley millions of our race;
No two the changing moon hath seen
Alike in purpose or in face:
Yet all aspire beyond their fate;
The least, the meanest, would be great;
The mighty future fills the mind
That pants for more than earth can give:
Man, to this narrow sphere confined,
Dies when he but begins to live.
Oh! if there be no world on high
To yield his powers unfettered scope;
If man be only born to die,
Whence this inheritance of hope?
Wherefore to him alone were lent
Riches that never can be spent?
Enough, not more, to all the rest,
For life and happiness was given;
To Man, mysteriously unblest,
Too much for any state but heaven.
It is not thus ;-it cannot be
That one so gloriously endowed
With views that reach eternity,
Should shine and vanish like a cloud:
Is there a GOD?-all Nature shows
There is, and yet no mortal knows;
The mind that could this truth conceive,
Which brute sensation never taught,
No longer to the dust would cleave,
But grow immortal with the thought.
THE VALENTINE WREATH (1811).
ROSY-RED the hills appear
With the light of morning, Beauteous clouds in ether clear, All the east adorning;
White through mist the meadows shine,Wake, my love, my Valentine!
For thy locks of raven hue,
Flowers with hoar-frost pearly,
Crocus-cups of gold and blue,
Snowdrops drooping early,
With mezereon-sprigs combine;
Rise, my love, my Valentine!
O'er the margin of the flood
Pluck the daisy, peeping;
Through the dry leaves in the wood
Hunt the sorrel, creeping;
With the little celandine
Crown my love, my Valentine!
Pansies, on their lowly stems,
Scattered o'er the fallows;
Hazel-buds, with crimson gems,
Green and glossy sallows;
|