I SAW THY FORM IN YOUTHFUL PRIME.
I SAW thy form in youthful prime,
Nor thought that pale decay
Would steal before the steps of Time,
And waste its bloom away, Mary!
Yet still thy features wore that light
Which fleets not with the breath;
And life ne'er look'd more truly bright
Than in thy smile of death, Mary!
As streams that run o'er golden mines,
Yet humbly, calmly glide,
Nor seem to know the wealth that shines
Within their gentle tide, Mary!
So, veil'd beneath the simplest guise,
Thy radiant genius shone,
And that which charm'd all other eyes
Seem'd worthless in thy own, Mary!
If souls could always dwell above,
Thou ne'er hadst left that sphere;
Or, could we keep the souls we love,
We ne'er had lost thee here, Mary!
Though many a gifted mind we meet,
Though fairest forms we see,
To live with them is far less sweet
Than to remember thee, Mary!
SHE IS FAR FROM THE LAND.
SHE is far from the land where her young hero sleeps,
And lovers are round her sighing;
But coldly she turns from their gaze, and weeps,
For her heart in his grave is lying!
She sings the wild song of her dear native plains,
Every note which he loved awaking:
Ah! little they think, who delight in her strains,
How the heart of the minstrel is breaking!
He had lived for his love, for his country he died,
They were all that to life had entwined him;
Nor soon shall the tears of his country be dried,
Nor long will his love stay behind him.
Oh! make her a grave where the sunbeams rest,
When they promise a glorious morrow;
They'll shine o'er her sleep like a smile from the
From her own loved Island of Sorrow!
FAREWELL! BUT, WHENEVER YOU WELCOME THE HOUR.
FAREWELL! but, whenever you welcome the hour
That awakens the night-song of mirth in your bower,
Then think of the friend who once welcomed it too,
And forgot his own griefs to be happy with you.
His griefs may return-not a hope may remain
Of the few that have brighten'd his pathway of pain-
But he ne'er will forget the short vision, that threw
Its enchantment around him while lingering with
you!
And still on that evening, when pleasure fills up
To the highest top sparkle each heart and each cup,
Where'er my path lies, be it gloomy or bright,
My soul, happy friends! shall be with you that night;
Shall join in your revels, your sports, and your wiles,
And return to me beaming all o'er with your smiles;
Too bless'd if it tells me that, mid the gay cheer,
Some kind voice had murmur'd, "I wish he were
here!"
Let Fate do her worst, there are relics of joy,
Bright dreams of the past, which she cannot destroy:
Which come, in the nighttime of sorrow and care, And bring back the features that joy used to wear. Long, long be my heart with such memories fill'd! Like the vase in which roses have once been distill'd; You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will, But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.
I'D MOURN THE HOPES.
I'D mourn the hopes that leave me,
If thy smiles had left me too;
I'd weep when friends deceive me,
If thou wert, like them, untrue.
But, while I've thee before me,
With heart so warm and eyes so bright,
No clouds can linger o'er me-
That smile turns them all to light!
"Tis not in fate to harm me,
While fate leaves thy love to me;
'Tis not in joy to charm me,
Unless joy be shared with thee.
One minute's dream about thee
Were worth a long, an endless year
Of waking bliss without thee,
My own love, my only dear!
And, though the hope be gone, love,
That long sparkled o'er our way,
Oh! we shall journey on, love,
More safely without its ray.
Far better lights shall win me
Along the path I've yet to roam;
The mind that burns within me,
And pure smiles from thee at home.
Thus, when the lamp that lighted
The traveller at first goes out,
He feels a while benighted,
And looks around in fear and doubt.
But soon, the prospect clearing,
By cloudless starlight on he treads,
And thinks no lamp so cheering
As that light which Heaven sheds!
In the morning of life, when its cares are unknown, And its pleasures in all their new lustre begin, When we live in a bright beaming world of our own, And the light that surrounds us is all from within: Oh, it is not, believe me, in that happy time
We can love as in hours of less transport we may : Of our smiles, of our hopes, 'tis the gay sunny prime, But affection is warmest when these fade away.
When we see the first glory of youth pass us by, Like a leaf on the stream that will never return; When our cup, which had sparkled with pleasure so high,
First tastes of the other, the dark-flowing urn; Then, then is the moment affection can sway
With a depth and a tenderness joy never knew; Love nursed among pleasures is faithless as they, But the love born of sorrow, like sorrow, is true!
In climes full of sunshine, though splendid their dyes,
Yet faint is the odour the flowers shed about;
'Tis the clouds and the mists of our own weeping
That call the full spirit of fragrancy out. [skies
So the wild glow of passion may kindle from mirth,
But 'tis only in grief true affection appears;
And, even though to smiles it may first owe its birth,
All the soul of its sweetness is drawn out by tears.
WHEN Cold in the earth lies the friend thou hast loved,
Be his faults and his follies forgot by thee then;
Or if from their slumber the veil be removed,
Weep o'er them in silence, and close it again.
And oh! if 'tis pain to remember how far [roam,
From the pathways of light he was tempted to
Be it bliss to remember that thou wert the star
That arose on his darkness and guided him home.
From thee and thy innocent beauty first came
The revealings that taught him true love to adore, To feel the bright presence, and turn him with shame From the idols he blindly had knelt to before. O'er the waves of a life long benighted and wild, Thou camest, like a soft golden calm o'er the sea; And if happiness purely and glowingly smiled
On his evening horizon, the light was from thee. And though sometimes the shade of past folly would rise,
And though falsehood again would allure him to
He but turn'd to the glory that dwelt in those eyes,
And the folly, the falsehood soon vanish'd away.
As the priests of the sun, when their altar grew dim,
At the daybeam alone could its lustre repair,
So, if virtue a moment grew languid in him,
He but flew to that smile, and rekindled it there.
THE dawning of morn, the daylight's sinking,
The night's long hours still find me thinking
Of thee, thee, only thee.
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