THERE are tears o' pity, an' tears o' wae, There are sighs o' pity, an' sighs o' wae, There's the look o' pity, the look o' wae, There's the smile o' friends when they come frae far, There's the smile o' joy in the festive ha'; Yet the smile o' luve is sweeter than a'! SONG Ir is the solemn even-time, And the vesper chime, oh! the vesper chime! It is the solemn mingled swell Of the monks in chorus singing: 'Tis the sound of the voices sweeping along, FRIENDSHIP 'Neque ego nunc de vulgari aut de mediocri, quæ tamen ipsa et delectat et prodest, sed de vera et perfecta loquor (amicitia) qualis eorum, qui pauci nominantur, fuit.'-CICERO. O THOU most holy Friendship! wheresoe'er Thy dwelling be- for in the courts of man But seldom thine all-heavenly voice we hear, Sweet'ning the moments of our narrow span; And seldom thy bright foot-steps do we scan Along the weary waste of life unblest, For faithless is its frail and wayward plan, And perfidy is man's eternal guest, With dark suspicion link'd and shameless interest! 'Tis thine, when life has reach'd its final goal, Ere the last sigh that frees the mind be giv'n, To speak sweet solace to the parting soul, And pave the bitter path that leads to heav'n: "T is thine, whene'er the heart is rack'd and riv'n By the hot shafts of baleful calumny, When the dark spirit to despair is driv'n, To teach its lonely grief to lean on thee, And pour within thine ear the tale of misery. But where art thou, thou comet of an age, Thou phoenix of a century? Perchance Thou art but of those fables which engage And hold the minds of men in giddy trance. Yet, be it so, and be it all romance, The thought of thine existence is so bright With beautiful imaginings- the glance Upon thy fancied being such delight, That I will deem thee Truth, so lovely is thy might! 'AND ASK YE WHY THESE SAD TEARS STREAM?' Te somnia nostra reducunt.' OVID. AND ask ye why these sad tears stream? Why these wan eyes are dim with weeping? I had a dream -a lovely dream, Of her that in the grave is sleeping. I saw her as 't was yesterday, The bloom upon her cheek still glowing; And round her play'd a golden_ray, And on her brows were gay flowers blowing. With angel-hand she swept a lyre, A garland red with roses bound it; I saw her mid the realms of light, I strove to reach her, when, behold, And I awoke, but oh! to me That waking hour was doubly weary; And yet I could not envy thee, Although so blest, and I so dreary. On such sad views my soul delights to pore, What time grey eve is fading into night; When by that twilight beam I scarce descry The mingled shades of earth and sea and sky. Give me to wander at midnight alone, Through some august cathedral, where, from high, The cold, clear moon on the mosaic stone Were graven, but long since are worn away Then, as Imagination aids, I hear Wild heavenly voices sounding from the quoir, And more than mortal music meets mine ear, Whose long, long notes among the tombs expire, With solemn rustling of cherubic wings, Round those vast columns which the roof upbear; While sad and undistinguishable things Do flit athwart the moonlit windows there; I love the starry spangled heav'n, resembling Far stretch'd beneath the mountain's hoary head. But most I love that sky, when, dark with storms, It frowns terrific o'er this wilder'd earth, While the black clouds, in strange and uncouth forms, Come hurrying onward in their ruinous wrath; And shrouding in their deep and gloomy robe The burning eyes of heav'n and Dian's lucid globe! I love your voice, ye echoing winds, that sweep Thro' the wide womb of midnight, when the veil Of darkness rests upon the mighty deep, The labouring vessel, and the shatter'd sail Save when the forked bolts of lightning leap On flashing pinions, and the mariner pale 1 According to Burke, a low tremulous intermitted sound is conducive to the sublime. 2 It is a received opinion, that on St. Mark's Eve all the persons who are to die on the following year make their appearances without their heads in the churches of their respective parishes. -See DR. LANGHORNE's Notes to Collins. This island, on both sides of which the waters rush Raises his eyes to heaven. Oh! who would sleep What time the rushing of the angry gale Is loud upon the waters?- Hail, all hail! Tempest and clouds and night and thunder's rending peal! All hail, Sublimity! thou lofty one, For thou dost walk upon the blast, and gird Thy majesty with terrors, and thy throne Is on the whirlwind, and thy voice is heard In thunders and in shakings: thy delight Is in the secret wood, the blasted heath, The ruin'd fortress, and the dizzy height, The grave, the ghastly charnel -house of death, In vaults, in cloisters, and in gloomy piles, Long corridors and towers and solitary aisles! Thy joy is in obscurity, and plain Is nought with thee; and on thy steps attend Shadows but half-distinguish'd; the thin train Of hovering spirits round thy pathway bend, With their low tremulous voice and airy tread,! What time the tomb above them yawns and What joy to view the varied rainbow smile Wheeling and whirling with each breathless wave,4 Immense, sublime, magnificent, profound! The hurricane fair earth to darkness changing, Hoar Cotopaxi's cloud-capt majesty, Enormous Chimborazo's naked pride, The dizzy Cape of winds that cleaves the sky, Whence we look down into eternity, 6 with astonishing swiftness, is 900 or 800 feet long, and its lower edge is just at the perpendicular edge of the fall. 4 Undis Phlegethon perlustrat ANHELIS.' — CLAU DIAN. 5 See Dr. Nahum Ward's account of the great Kentucky Cavern, in the Monthly Magazine, October, 1816. 6 In the Ukraine. The pillar'd cave of Morven's giant king,1 The Yanar, and the Geyser's boiling fountain, The deep volcano's inward murmuring, The shadowy Colossus of the mountain; 3 Antiparos, where sun-beams never enter; Loud Stromboli, amid the quaking isles; The terrible Maelstroom, around his centre Wheeling his circuit of unnumber'd miles: These, these are sights and sounds that freeze the blood, Yet charm the awe-struck soul which doats on solitude. Blest be the bard, whose willing feet rejoice To tread the emerald green of Fancy's vales, Who hears the music of her heavenly voice, And breathes the rapture of her nectar'd gales! Blest be the bard, whom golden Fancy loves, He strays for ever thro' her blooming bowers Amid the rich profusion of her groves, And wreathes his forehead with her spicy flowers Of sunny radiance; but how blest is he THE DEITY Signed 'A. T. or C. T.' in the reprint, but Lord Tennyson believes, as I do, that Charles wrote it. 'Immutable -- immortal - infinite!'- MILTON WHERE is the wonderful abode, The holy, secret, searchless shrine, O! that he were reveal'd to me, In all the awful majesty Of heaven's consummate pomp array'd How would the overwhelming light Would the broad glow of glory stream! What tho' this flesh would fade like grass, The fiercest pangs would well repay. When Moses on the mountain's brow Wond'ring and trembling at its base; 1 Fingal's Cave in the Island of Staffa. If the Colossus of Rhodes bestrid a harbour, Fingal's powers were certainly far from despicable: A chos air Cromleach druim-ard His visage, as he downward trod, They could not brook it, and they bow'd. The mere reflection of the blaze That lighten'd round creation's Lord, Then how ineffably august, How passing wond'rous must He be, Whose presence lent to earthly dust Such permanence of brilliancy! Thron'd in sequester'd sanctity, And with transcendant glories crown'd; How shall I hymn him? How aspire TIME: AN ODE Remarkable for imagination and for versification as the work of a boy of sixteen. I SEE the chariot, where, Throughout the purple air, The forelock'd monarch rides: Arm'd like some antique vehicle for war, Cleaving the clouds of ages that float by, The great, the lowly, and the brave Bow down before the rushing force Of thine unconquerable course; Thy wheels are noiseless as the grave, Yet fleet as Heaven's red bolt they hurry on, They pass above us, and are gone! Clear is the track which thou hast past; Strew'd with the wrecks of frail renown, Robe, sceptre, banner, wreath, and crown, The pathway that before thee lies, An undistinguishable waste, Invisible to human eyes, Which fain would scan the various shapes which glide In dusky cavalcade, Imperfectly descried, Through shade. that intense, impenetrable With one foot on Cromleach his brow, Fion took up with his large hand The water from Lubhair of streams. See the Dissertations prefixed to Ossian's Poems. Or, perpetual fire. 3 Alias, the Spectre of the Broken, 1 Fast behind thee follows Death, Thro' the ranks of wan and weeping, That yield their miserable breath, On with his pallid courser proudly sweeping. Arm'd is he in full mail,1 Bright breast-plate and high crest, Nor is the trenchant falchion wanting: So fiercely does he ride the gale, On Time's dark car, before him, rest The dew-drops of his charger's panting. On, on they go along the boundless skies, Beneath the terrible control Of those vast armed orbs, which roll 'Live ye!' to these he crieth; 'live! Ye, upon whose blessed birth The noblest star of heaven hath shone; Live, when, wrapt in sullen shade, Live, when imperial Time and Death himself shall die!' GOD'S DENUNCIATIONS AGAINST PHARAOH-HOPHRA, OR APRIES THOU beast of the flood, who hast said in thy soul, 'I have made me a stream that for ever shall roll!' 2 1 I am indebted for the idea of Death's Armour to that famous Chorus in Caractacus beginning with — 'Hark! heard ye not that footstep dread?' 2 Pliny's reproach to the Egyptians, for their vain and foolish pride with regard to the inundations of the Nile, points out one of their most distinguishing char Thy strength is the flower that shall last but a day, And thy might is the snow in the sun's burning ray. Arm, arm from the east, Babylonia's son! Arm, arm for the battle the Lord leads thee on ! With the shield of thy fame, and the power of thy pride, Arm, arm in thy glory - the Lord is thy guide. Thou shalt come like a storm when the moonlight is dim, And the lake's gloomy bosom is full to the brim; Thou shalt come like the flash in the darkness of night, When the wolves of the forest shall howl for affright. Woe, woe to thee, Tanis! thy babes shall be thrown By the barbarous hands on the cold marblestone: Woe, woe to thee, Nile! for thy stream shall be red With the blood that shall gush o'er thy billowy bed! Woe, woe to thee, Memphis! the war-cry is near, And the child shall be toss'd on the murderer's spear; For fiercely he comes in the day of his ire, With wheels like a whirlwind, and chariots of fire! THE GRAVE OF A SUICIDE HARK! how the gale, in mournful notes and stern, Sighs thro' yon grove of aged oaks, that wave (While down these solitary walks I turn) Their mingled branches o'er yon lonely grave! Poor soul! the dawning of thy life was dim; Frown'd the dark clouds upon thy natal day; Soon rose thy cup of sorrow to the brim, And hope itself but shed a doubtful ray. That hope had fled, and all within was gloom; That hope had fled thy woe to phrenzy grew; acteristics, and recalls to my mind a fine passage of Ezekiel, where God thus speaks to Pharaoh, one of their kings: "Behold, I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon that lieth in the midst of his rivers, that hath said, MY RIVER IS MINE OWN, AND I HAVE MADE IT FOR MYSELF."-ROLLIN, vol. i. p. 216. 3 The Scriptural appellations are Zoan' and 'Noph.' SOFT, shadowy moon-beam! by thy light The swell of distant brook is heard, Come hither! let us thread with care The maze of this green path, which binds The beauties of the broad parterre, And thro' yon fragrant alley winds. Or on this old bench will we sit, Round which the clust'ring woodbine wreathes; While birds of night around us flit; And thro' each lavish wood-walk breathes, Unto my ravish'd senses, brought From yon thick-woven odorous bowers, The still rich breeze, with incense fraught Of glowing fruits and spangled flowers. The whispering leaves, the gushing stream, Then, to the thickly-crowded mart Then, wealth aloft in state displays Yon church, whose cold grey spire appears Whose form in dreams my spirit sees. There in the chilling bed of earth, The chancel's letter'd stone above There sleepeth she who gave me birth, Who taught my lips the hymn of love! Yon mossy stems of ancient oak, So widely crown'd with sombre shade, Those ne'er have heard the woodman's stroke Their solemn, secret depths invade. How oft the grassy way I've trod That winds their knotty boles between, And gather'd from the blooming sod The flowers that flourish'd there unseen! Rise! let us trace that path once more, While o'er our track the cold beams shine; Down this low shingly vale, and o'er Yon rude rough bridge of prostrate pine. MITHRIDATES PRESENTING BERENICE WITH THE CUP OF POISON OH! Berenice, lorn and lost, This wretched soul with shame is bleeding: Oh! Berenice, I am tost By griefs, like wave to wave succeeding. Fall'n Pontus! all her fame is gone, And dark the lustre of her story. Dead is the wreath that round her brow And wilt thou, wilt thou basely go, Mid madd'ning shouts, and standards flaming? And wilt thou, wilt thou basely go, Lone, crownless, destitute, and poor, Small hope from future fortune borrows; One glorious thought shall cheer me still, That thou art free from abject sorrows Art free for ever from the strife Of slavery's pangs and tearful anguish; For life is death, and death is life, To those whose limbs in fetters languish. |