REGENERATION. I NEED a cleansing change within- Ah! why did fabling Poets tell Whence brutish spirits, in contagious shoals, Ah, no! but Lethe flows aloft Its every drop as bright and clear As if indeed it were a tear, Shed by the lovely Magdalen For Him that was despised of men. It is the only fount of bliss In all the human wilderness It is the true Bethesda-solely Endued with healing might, and holy:Not once a year, but evermore Not one, but all men to restore. O Fons Bandusiæ, splendidior vitro, BANDUSIAN spring, more gaily bright, Than gem compact of solar light, That, fetter'd long in darksome earth, Leaps forth to greet a kindred rayThou art worth a Poet's lay. Flowers-them we will not give,- Little lambkins ;-let them live, Thou wert loth to hear them moan: Let them frisk upon thy bourn, And in thee view the budding horn. Well I know, an ancient Poet Promised thee a kid to-morrow I, a Christian Bard, well know it,- Poet he, that would have been A Christian Poet if he could,One that felt far more, I ween, Than he ever understood, One that only wanted telling The truth that in his heart was dwelling. Bandusian fount! I know not thee, Where, long of yore, thy waters bubbled, And I could almost wish there were not, Since all who loved thee dearly are not. The barren rocks are still the same The fertile streams are changing ever, Yet fare thee well, thou lovely spring, Not all the powers of earth can hurt thee: And tho' no lamb to thee we give, Blest shalt thou be as long as lambkins live. WRITTEN IN JANUARY, 1833. THE old year is gone so uncivil was I, To the man, who is fit to be married, a wife, To my friends, that they may not have much to forgive, THE BIRTH-DAY. TO JAMES BRANKER, ESQ. EVEN as the wise astronomer invents Zones, colures, cycles, in the trackless sky Or as the mariner, whose daring art With curious lines, that, to the mind untaught, Historic pillars, quaintly sculptured o'er |