It was noon, and on flowers that languished around But the woodpecker tapping the hollow beech-tree. "With a maid who was lovely to soul and to eye, Who would blush when I praised her, and weep if I blamed, How blest could I live, and how calm could I die! "By the shade of yon sumach, whose red berry dips In the gush of the fountain, how sweet to recline, And to know that I sighed upon innocent lips, Which had never been sighed on by any but mine!" ΤΟ Νοσει τα φιλτατα. Euripides. COME, take the harp-'tis vain to muse Oh! take the harp, and let me lose All thoughts of ill in hearing thee! 1803. Sing to me, love !-though death were near, Nay, nay, in pity dry that tear, All may be well, be happy yet! Let me but see that snowy arm Will smile at fate, while thou art nigh! Art thou, too, wretched? yes, thou art; A VISION OF PHILOSOPHY. 'TWAS on the Red Sea coast, at morn, we met The venerable man; a virgin bloom Of softness mingled with the vigorous thought When death is nigh! and still, as he unclosed Who mused, amid the mighty cataclysm, O'er his rude tablets of primeval lore, Nor let the living star of science sink Beneath the waters which ingulphed the world !— To him who traced upon his typic lyre The diapason of man's mingled frame, And the grand Doric heptachord of heaven! And bright through every change!-he spoke of The lone, eternal One, who dwells above, And of the soul's untraceable descent From that high fount of spirit, through the grades. Of intellectual being, till it mix With atoms vague, corruptible, and dark; Nor even then, though sunk in earthly dross Quite lost, but tasting of the fountain still! And here the old man ceased-a winged train ΤΟ THE world had just begun to steal And life grew dark and love was gone! No lip to mingle pleasure's breath, Oh! something seemed to tell me then And hope and bliss might bloom again! With every beamy smile that crossed Your kindling cheek, you lighted home And peace, which long had learned to roam ! 'Twas then indeed so sweet to live, Hope looked so new and Love so kind, I could have loved you-oh so well!- Which only lives while passion glows: When the heart's vivid morning fleets, Yes, yes, I could have loved, as one Who, while his youth's enchantments fall, TO DREAMS. IN slumber, I prithee, how is it That souls are oft taking the air, And paying each other a visit, While bodies are-Heaven knows where? Last night, 'tis in vain to deny it, Your Soul took a fancy to roam, For I heard her, on tiptoe so quiet, Come ask whether mine was at home. And mine let her in with delight, And they talked and they kissed the time through, For, when souls come together at night, There is no knowing what they mayn't do! : And your little Soul, Heaven bless her! "If I happen," said she, "but to steal Just venture abroad on a sigh ; "In an instant she frightens me in With some phantom of prudence or terror, For fear I should stray into sin, Or, what is still worse, into error! "So, instead of displaying my graces Through look and through words and through mien, Upon hearing this piteous confession, He did not know much of the matter; "But to-morrow, sweet Spirit!" he said, So she whispered a word in his ear, TO MRS. To see thee every day that came, That life, without this cheering ray, A CANADIAN BOAT-SONG. Et remigem cantus hortatur.-Quintilian. Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time. *I wrote these words to an air which our boatmen sung to us very frequently. The wind was so unfavourable that they were obliged to row all the way, and we were five days in descending the river from Kingston to Montreal, exposed to an intense sun during the day, and at night forced to take shelter from the dews in any miserable hut upon the banks that would receive us. But the magnificent scenery of the St. Lawrence repays all these difficulties. Our voyageurs had good voices, and sung perfectly in tune together. The original words of the air, to which I adapted these stanzas, appeared to be a long, incoherent story, of which I could understand but little, from the barbarous pronunciation of the Canadian. It begins Dans mon chemin j'ai rencontré And the refrain to every verse was A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais jouer, A l'ombre d'un bois je m'en vais danser. I ventured to harmonize this air, and have published it. Without that charm which association gives to every little memorial of scenes or feelings that are past, the melody may perhaps be thought common and trifling; but I remember when we have entered, at sunset, upon one of those beautiful lakes into which the St. Lawrence so grandly and unexpectedly opens, I have heard this simple air with a pleasure which the finest compositions of the first masters have never given me, and now there is not a note of it which does not recall to my memory the dip of our oars in the St. Lawrence, the flight of our boat down the Rapids, and all those new and fanciful impressions to which my heart was alive during he whole of this very interesting voyage. The above stanzas are supposed to be sung by those voyageurs who go to the Gran Fortage by the Utawas River. For an account of this wonderful under taking sec Sir Alexander Mackenzie's General History of the Fur Trade, prefixed his Journal. |