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That willow from Euphrates' strand, Had sprung beneath his training hand.

Long as revolving seasons flew,

From youth to age it flourish'd; By vernal winds and starlight dew,

By showers and sunbeams nourish'd;
And while in dust the poet slept,
The willow o'er his ashes wept.

Old Time beheld his silvery head
With graceful grandeur towering,
Its pensile boughs profusely spread,

The breezy lawn embowering,

Till arch'd around, there seem'd to shoot A grove of scions from one root.

Thither, at summer noon, he view'd

The lovely Nine retreating, Beneath its twilight solitude

With songs their poet greeting. Whose spirit in the willow spoke, Like Jove's from dark Dodona's oak.

By harvest moonlight there he spied
The fairy bands advancing;
Bright Ariel's troops, on Thames's side,
Around the willow dancing;
Gay sylphs among the foliage play'd,
And glow-worms glitter'd in the shade.

One morn, while Time thus mark'd the tree
In beauty green and glorious,

"The hand," he cried, "that planted thee O'er mine was oft victorious;

Be vengeance now my calm employ,-
One work of Pope's I will destroy."

He spake, and struck a silent blow

With that dread arm whose motion
Lays cedars, thrones, and temples low,
And wields o'er land and ocean
The unremitting axe of doom,
That fells the forest of the tomb.

Deep to the willow's root it went,
And cleft the core asunder,
Like sudden secret lightning, sent
Without recording thunder:
-From that sad moment, slow away
Began the willow to decay.

In vain did spring those bowers restore,
Where loves and graces revell'd,
Autumn's wild gales the branches tore,
The thin gray leaves dishevell❜d,
And every wasting winter found
The willow nearer to the ground.

Hoary, and weak, and bent with age,
At length the axe assail'd it:
It bow'd before the woodman's rage;
-The swans of Thames bewail'd it,
With softer tones, with sweeter breath,
Than ever charm'd the ear of death.

O Pope! hadst thou, whose lyre so long
The wondering world enchanted,
Amidst thy paradise of song

This weeping willow planted;

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THE SWISS COWHERD'S SONG IN A
FOREIGN LAND.

IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH.

O, WHEN shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth?
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,
Our forests, our fountains,

Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore?
O, when shall I dance on the daisy-white mead,
In the shade of an elm, to the sound of the reed?
When shall I return to that lowly retreat,
Where all my fond objects of tenderness meet,—
The lambs and the heifers that follow my call,
My father, my mother,

My sister, my brother,

And dear Isabella, the joy of them all?
O, when shall I visit the land of my birth?
-'Tis the loveliest land on the face of the earth.

THE DIAL.

THIS shadow on the dial's face,
That steals from day to day,
With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Moments, and months, and years away;
This shadow, which, in every clime,
Since light and motion first began,
Hath held its course sublime-
What is it?-Mortal man!
It is the scythe of time:
-A shadow only to the eye;
Yet, in its calm career,

It levels all beneath the sky;

And still, through each succeeding year
Right onward, with resistless power,
Its stroke shall darken every hour,

Till nature's race be run,

And time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun

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Its weakness in her arms to bear;

To cherish on her breast,

Feed it from love's own fountain there,

And lull it there to rest;

Then while it slumbers watch its breath,
As if to guard from instant death;
This is a mother's love.

To mark its growth from day to day,
Its opening charms admire,
Catch from its eye the earliest ray
Of intellectual fire;

To smile and listen while it talks,
And lend a finger when it walks;
This is a mother's love.

And can a mother's love grow cold?

Can she forget her boy?
His pleading innocence behold,
Nor weep for grief-for joy!
A mother may forget her child,
While wolves devour it on the wild;
-Is this a mother's love?

Ten thousand voices answer, "No!"

Ye clasp your babes and kiss;
Your bosoms yearn, your eyes o'erflow;
Yet, ah remember this;

The infant, rear'd alone for earth,
May live, may die,-to curse his birth;
-Is this a mother's love?

A parent's heart may prove a snare ;
The child she loves so well,
Her hand may lead, with gentlest care,
Down the smooth road to hell;
Nourish its frame,-destroy its mind:
Thus do the blind mislead the blind,

Even with a mother's love.

Blest infant! whom his mother taught
Early to seek the Lord,
And pour'd upon his dawning thought

The day-spring of the word;
This was the lesson to her son,
-Time is eternity begun :

Behold that mother's love.*

Blest mother! who, in wisdom's path,
By her own parent trod,

Thus taught her son to flee the wrath,
And know the fear of God:

Ah! youth, like him enjoy your prime,
Begin eternity in time,

Taught by that mother's love.

That mother's love!-how sweet the name! What was that mother's love?

-The noblest, purest, tenderest flame,

That kindles from above

Within a heart of earthly mould,

As much of heaven as heart can hold,
Nor through eternity grows cold:
This was that mother's love.

THE GLOW-WORM.

The male of this insect is said to be a fly, which the female caterpillar attracts in the night by the lustre of her train.

WHEN evening closes nature's eye,

The glow-worm lights her little spark,

To captivate her favourite fly,

And tempt the rover through the dark.

Conducted by a sweeter star

Than all that deck the fields above,

He fondly hastens from afar,

To soothe her solitude with love.

Thus in this wilderness of tears,
Amidst the world's perplexing gloom,
The transient torch of Hymen cheers
The pilgrim journeying to the tomb.
Unhappy he whose hopeless eye

Turns to the light of love in vain;
Whose cynosure is in the sky,
He on the dark and lonely main.

2 Tim. i. 5, and iii. 14, 15.

THE OAK.

IMITATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF METASTASIO.

THE tall oak, towering to the skies,

The fury of the wind defies,
From age to age, in virtue strong,
Inured to stand, and suffer wrong.

O'erwhelm'd at length upon the plain,
It puts forth wings, and sweeps the main;
The selfsame foe undaunted braves,
And fights the winds upon the waves.

THE WIDOW AND THE FATHERLESS.
WELL, thou art gone, and I am left:
But O! how cold and dark to me
This world, of every charm bereft,
Where all was beautiful with thee!

Though I have seen thy form depart
For ever from my widow'd eye,

I hold thee in mine inmost heart;
There, there at least thou canst not die.

Farewell on earth: Heaven claim'd its own;
Yet, when from me thy presence went,
I was exchanged for God alone:
Let dust and ashes learn content.

Ha! those small voices, silver sweet! Fresh from the fields my babes appear; They fill my arms, they clasp my feet: -"O! could your father see us here!"

HUMAN LIFE.

Job xiv.

How few and evil are thy days,
Man, of a woman born!

Trouble and peril haunt thy ways:
-Forth like a flower at morn,
The tender infant springs to light,
Youth blossoms with the breeze,
Age, withering age, is cropt ere night;
-Man like a shadow flees.

And dost Thou look on such a one?
Will God to judgment call

A worm, for what a worm hath done
Against the Lord of all?

As fail the waters from the deep,
As summer brooks run dry,

Man lieth down in dreamless sleep;
-Our life is vanity.

Man lieth down, no more to wake,
Till yonder arching sphere
Shall with a roll of thunder break,
And nature disappear.

-O! hide me, till thy wrath be past,
Thou, who canst kill or save;

Hide me, where hope may anchor fast In my Redeemer's grave.

THE BIBLE.

WHAT is the world?-A wildering maze,
Where sin hath track'd ten thousand ways,
Her victims to ensnare;

All broad, and winding, and aslope,
All tempting with perfidious hope,
All ending in despair.

Millions of pilgrims throng those roads,
Bearing their baubles, or their loads,

Down to eternal night:

-One humble path, that never bends,
Narrow, and rough, and steep, ascends
From darkness into light.

Is there a guide to show that path?
The Bible-He alone, who hath

The Bible, need not stray:
Yet he who hath, and will not give
That heavenly guide to all that live,
Himself shall lose the way.

THE DAISY IN INDIA.

Supposed to be addressed by the Rev. Dr. Carey, the learned and illustrious Baptist missionary at Serampore, to the first plant of this kind, which sprang up unexpectedly in his garden, out of some English earth, in which other seeds had been conveyed to him from this country. With great care and nursing, the doctor has been enabled to perpetuate the daisy in India, as an annual only, raised by seed preserved from season to

season.

THRICE Welcome, little English flower!
My mother country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,
Never to me such beauty spread:
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!

Whose tribes, beneath our natal skies,

Shut close their leaves while vapours lower;
But, when the sun's gay beams arise,
With unabash'd but modest eyes,
Follow his motion to the west,
Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,
Then fold themselves to rest.

Thrice welcome, little English flower,
To this resplendent hemisphere,
Where Flora's giant offspring tower
In gorgeous liveries all the year;
Thou, only thou, art little here,
Like worth unfriended and unknown,
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the torrid zone.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Of early scenes beloved by me,
While happy in my father's bower,
Thou shalt the blithe memorial be;

The fairy sports of infancy,

Youth's golden age, and manhood's prime,
Home, country, kindred, friends, with thee,
I find in this far clime.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
I'll rear thee with a trembling hand:
O, for the April sun and shower,
The sweet May dews of that fair land,
Where daisies, thick as starlight, stand
In every walk!-that here may shoot
Thy scions, and thy buds expand,
A hundred from one root.

Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To me the pledge of hope unseen;
When sorrow would my soul o'erpower
For joys that were, or might have been,
I'll call to mind how, fresh and green,
I saw thee waking from the dust;
Then turn to heaven with brow serene,
And place in God my trust.

Wine, oil, refreshment; he was heal'd;
I had myself a wound conceal'd;
But from that hour forgot the smart,
And peace bound up my broken heart.

In prison I saw him next, condemn'd
To meet a traitor's doom at morn;
The tide of lying tongues I stemm'd,
And honour'd him midst shame and scorn:
My friendship's utmost zeal to try,
He ask'd, if I for him would die;

The flesh was weak, my blood ran chill,
But the free spirit cried, "I will."

Then in a moment to my view
The Stranger darted from disguise,
The tokens in his hands I knew,
My Saviour stood before mine eyes:
He spake ;
and my poor name He named ;
"Of me thou hast not been ashamed:
These deeds shall thy memorial be;
Fear not, thou didst them unto Me."

THE STRANGER AND HIS FRIEND.

"Ye have done it unto me."-Matt. xxv. 40.

A POOR wayfaring man of grief
Hath often cross'd me on my way,
Who sued so humbly for relief,
That I could never answer, " Nay;"
I had not power to ask his name,
Whither he went, or whence he came,
Yet was there something in his eye,
That won my love, I knew not why.
Once, when my scanty meal was spread,
He enter'd;-not a word he spake :-
Just perishing for want of bread;
I gave him all; he bless'd it, brake,
And ate, but gave me part again;
Mine was an angel's portion then,
For while I fed with eager haste,
That crust was manna to my taste.

I spied him, where a fountain burst

Clear from the rock; his strength was gone;
The heedless water mock'd his thirst,
He heard it, saw it hurrying on:

I ran to raise the sufferer up;

Thrice from the stream he drain'd my cup, Dipt, and return'd it running o'er;

I drank, and never thirsted more.

'Twas night; the floods were out; it blew A winter hurricane aloof;

I heard his voice abroad, and flew

To bid him welcome to my roof;

I warm'd, I clothed, I cheer'd my guest,
Laid him on my own couch to rest;
Then made the hearth my bed, and seem'd
In Eden's garden while I dream'd.

Stript, wounded, beaten, nigh to death,
I found him by the highway side:

I roused his pulse, brought back his breath,
Revived his spirit, and supplied

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THE AGES OF MAN.

YOUTH, fond youth! to thee in life's gay morning,
New and wonderful are heaven and earth;
Health the hills, content the fields adorning,
Nature rings with melody and mirth;
Love invisible, beneath, above,

Conquers all things; all things yield to love.

Time, swift time, from years their motion stealing,
Unperceived hath sober manhood brought:
Truth, her pure and humble forms revealing,
Peoples fancy's fairy-land with thought;
Then the heart, no longer prone to roam,
Loves, loves best, the quiet bliss of home.

Age, old age, in sickness, pain, and sorrow,
Creeps with lengthening shadow o'er the scene;
Life was yesterday, 'tis death to-morrow,
And to-day the agony between:

Then how longs the weary soul for thee,
Bright and beautiful eternity!

ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH.

HIGHER, higher will we climb
Up the mount of glory,

That our names may live through time

In our country's story:
Happy, when her welfare calls,
He who conquers, he who falls,
Deeper, deeper let us toil
In the mines of knowledge-
Nature's wealth and learning's spoil
Win from school and college;
Delve we there for richer gems
Than the stars of diadems.

Onward, onward will we press
Through the path of duty;
Virtue is true happiness,
Excellence true beauty:
Minds are of supernal birth,

Let us make a heaven of earth.

Close and closer then we knit
Hearts and hands together,
Where our fireside comforts sit
In the wildest weather:

O! they wander wide, who roam
For the joys of life, from home.

Nearer, dearer bands of love
Draw our souls in union,
To our Father's house above,
To the saints' communion;
Thither every hope ascend,
There may all our labours end.

THE FALLING LEAF.

WERE I a trembling leaf,
On yonder stately tree,
After a season gay and brief,
Condemn'd to fade and flee;

I should be loath to fall
Beside the common way,

Weltering in mire, and spurn'd by all,
Till trodden down to clay.

Nor would I choose to die

All on a bed of grass,

Where thousands of my kindred lie,
And idly rot in mass.

Nor would I like to spread

My thin and wither'd face

In hortus siccus, pale and dead,

A mummy of my race.

No, on the wings of air
Might I be left to fly,

I know not and I heed not where,

A waif of earth and sky!

Or flung upon the stream,
Curl'd like a fairy-boat,

As through the changes of a dream,
To the world's end to float!

Who that hath ever been,

Could bear to be no more?

Yet who would tread again the scene
He trod through life before?

On, with intense desire,
Man's spirit will move on;

It seems to die, yet like Heaven's fire,
It is not quench'd, but gone.

THE ADVENTURE OF A STAR.

ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY.

A STAR Would be a flower;

So down from heaven it came,

And in a honeysuckle bower

Lit up its little flame.

There on a bank, beneath the shade,
By sprays, and leaves, and blossoms made,

It overlook'd the garden ground,

-A landscape stretching ten yards round; O what a change of place

From gazing through eternity of space!

Gay plants on every side
Unclosed their lovely blooms,
And scatter'd far and wide
Their ravishing perfumes:
The butterfly, the bee,

And many an insect on the wing,
Full of the spirit of the spring,
Flew round and round in endless glee,
Alighting here, ascending there,
Ranging and revelling everywhere.

Now all the flowers were up, and drest
In robes of rainbow-colour'd light;
The pale primroses look'd their best,
Peonies blush'd with all their might;
Dutch tulips from their beds
Flaunted their stately heads;
Auriculas, like belles and beaux,

Glittering with birth-night splendour, rose;

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