Whatever else the fond inventive skill Of Fancy may suggest cannot supply Fit semblance of the sleeping life of infancy. Calm art thou as the blessed Sabbath eve, And, lovely child, it rung to welcome thee, Announcing thy approach with gladsome minstrelsy. So be thy life-a gentle Sabbath, pure From worthless strivings of the work-day earth : And thy worst woe a pensive Sabbath melancholy. MAY, 1832. Is this the merry May of tale and song? Chill breathes the North-the sky looks chilly blue, The waters wear a cold and iron hue, Or wrinkle as the crisp wave creeps along, Much like an ague fit. The starry throng Of flow'rets droop o'erdone with drenching dew, ISABEL. WHERE dwells she now? That life of joy Its self-derived and self-sufficing gladness? May she behold this spot of earth, This human home, that saw her birth, Her baby tears, her infant mirth, The first quick stirrings of her human mind? May she return to watch the flowers She planted last in fairy bowers ? They freshen yet with summer showers, That lovely form, that face so bright, May it no more to waking sight, Or spiritual ken, in very truth appear? That visible shape, that kind warm glowThat all that Heaven vouchsafed to shew 'Tis gone. 'Twas all our sense could know, Of her we loved, whom yet we hold so dear. The world hath lost the antique faith 'Tis well that creed is out of date, And men have found, at last, though late, That loathing fear, and fearful hate, And rankling vengeance, all are cruel liars; And all the doctrine that they teach Of ghosts that roam when owlets screech, Is but the false and fatal speech Of guilty terrors, or of worse desires. But is there not a charm in love, To call thy spirit from above? Oh! had I pinions like a dove, Were I like thee, a pure enfranchised soul, Then might I see thee as thou art, Familiar things would all seem strange, Is all the world below. The very hills, they are not now Ye deem the dead are ashy pale, But what are ye, who live to wail, |