THE PAST. In thy abysses hide Beauty and excellence unknown-to thee Are gathered, as the waters to the sea; Unpublished charity, unbroken faith,- And 123 grew with years, and faltered not in death. Lurks in thy depths, unuttered, unrevered; Forgotten arts, and wisdom disappeared. Thy bolts shall fall, inexorable Past! Has gone into thy womb from earliest time, The glory and the beauty of its prime. They have not perished-no! Kind words, remembered voices once so sweet, And features, the great soul's apparent seat. Of pure affection shall be knit again; And Sorrow dwell a prisoner in thy reign. And then shall I behold Him, by whose kind paternal side I sprung, young. Fills the next grave-the beautiful and "UPON THE MOUNTAIN'S DISTANT HEAD." UPON the mountain's distant head, But far below those icy rocks, The vales, in summer bloom arrayed, Woods full of birds, and fields of flocks, Are dim with mist and dark with shade. 'Tis thus, from warm and kindly hearts, And eyes where generous meanings burn, Earliest the light of life departs, But lingers with the cold and stern. THE EVENING WIND. SPIRIT that breathest through my lattice, thou And swelling the white sail. I welcome thee Nor I alone-a thousand bosoms round THE EVENING WIND. 125 And, languishing to hear thy grateful sound, Curl the still waters, bright with stars, and rouse The wide old wood from his majestic rest, Summoning from the innumerable boughs The strange, deep harmonies that haunt his breast: Pleasant shall be thy way where meekly bows The shutting flower, and darkling waters pass, And where the o'ershadowing branches sweep the grass. The faint old man shall lean his silver head To feel thee; thou shalt kiss the child asleep, And they who stand about the sick man's bed, Go-but the circle of eternal change, Which is the life of nature, shall restore, With sounds and scents from all thy mighty range Thee to thy birthplace of the deep once more; Sweet odours in the sea-air, sweet and strange, Shall tell the home-sick mariner of the shore; And, listening to thy murmur, he shall deem He hears the rustling leaf and running stream.. "WHEN THE FIRMAMENT QUIVERS WITH DAYLIGHT'S YOUNG BEAM." WHEN the firmament quivers with daylight's young beam, And the woodlands awaking burst into a hymn, And the glow of the sky blazes back from the stream, How the bright ones of heaven in the brightness grow dim. Oh! 'tis sad, in that moment of glory and song, To see, while the hill-tops are waiting the sun, The glittering band that kept watch all night long O'er Love and o'er Slumber, go out one by one: Till the circle of ether, deep, ruddy, and vast, Scarce glimmers with one of the train that were there; And their leader the day-star, the brightest and last, Twinkles faintly and fades in that desert of air. Thus, Oblivion, from midst of whose shadow we came, Steals o'er us again when life's twilight is gone; And the crowd of bright names, in the heaven of fame, Grow pale and are quenched as the years hasten on. Let them fade-but we'll pray that the age, in whose flight, Of ourselves and our friends the remembrance shall die, May rise o'er the world, with the gladness and light Of the morning that withers the stars from the sky. 66 INNOCENT CHILD." 127 "INNOCENT CHILD AND SNOW-WHITE FLOWER." INNOCENT child and snow-white flower! White as those leaves, just blown apart, Artless one! though thou gazest now Throw it aside in thy weary hour, TO THE RIVER ARVE. SUPPOSED TO BE WRITTEN AT A HAMLET NEAR THE FOOT OF MONT BLANC. NOT from the sands or cloven rocks, |