Слике страница
PDF
ePub

FILL THE BUMPER FAIR.

FILL the bumper fair!

Every drop we sprinkle O'er the brow of Care

Smoothes away a wrinkle.
Wit's electric flame

Ne'er so swiftly passes,
As when through the frame

It shoots from brimming glasses. Fill the bumper fair!

Every drop we sprinkle

O'er the brow of Care

Smoothes away a wrinkle.

Sages can, they say,

Grasp the lightning's pinions,

And bring down its ray

From the starr'd dominious:

So we, Sages, sit,

And, 'mid bumpers bright'ning,

From the Heaven of Wit

Draw down all its lightning.

Wouldst thou know what first
Made our souls inherit

This ennobling thirst

For wine's celestial spirit?

It chanc'd upon that day,
When, as bards inform us,
Prometheus stole away

The living fires that warm us:

The careless Youth, when up
To Glory's fount aspiring,
Took nor urn nor cup

To hide the pilfer'd fire in.

But oh his joy, when, round
The halls of Heaven spying,
Among the stars he found
A bowl of Bacchus lying!

Some drops were in that bowl,
Remains of last night's pleasure,
With which the Sparks of Soul
Mix'd their burning treasure.
Hence the goblet's shower

Hath such spells to win us;
Hence its mighty power

O'er that flame within us.

Fill the bumper fair!

Every drop we sprinkle
O'er the brow of Care

Smoothes away a wrinkle.

OH BANQUET NOT.

OH banquet not in those shining bowers,
Where Youth resorts, but come to me:
For mine's a garden of faded flowers,

More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee.
And there we shall have our feast of tears,
And many a cup in silence pour;
Our guests, the shades of former years,
Our toasts, to lips that bloom no more.

There, while the myrtle's withering boughs
Their lifeless leaves around us shed,
We'll brim the bowl to broken vows,

To friends long lost, the changed, the dead.
Or, while some blighted laurel waves
Its branches o'er the dreary spot,
We'll drink to those neglected graves,

Where valour sleeps, unnam'd, forgot.

MY GENTLE HARP.

My gentle Harp, once more I waken
The sweetness of thy slumb'ring strain;
In tears our last farewell was taken,
And now in tears we meet again.
No light of joy hath o'er thee broken,
But, like those Harps whose heav'nly skill
Of slavery, dark as thine, hath spoken,
Thou hang'st upon the willows still.

And yet, since last thy chord resounded,
An hour of peace and triumph came,
And many an ardent bosom bounded

With hopes-that now are turn'd to shame.
Yet even then, while Peace was singing
Her halcyon song o'er land and sea,
Though joy and hope to others bringing,
She only brought new tears to thee.

Then, who can ask for notes of pleasure,
My drooping Harp, from chords like thine?
Alas, the lark's gay morning measure

As ill would suit the swan's decline!
Or how shall I, who love, who bless thee,
Invoke thy breath for Freedom's strains,
When ev'n the wreaths in which I dress thee,
Are sadly mix'd-half flow'rs, half chains?

But come-if yet thy frame can borrow
One breath of joy, oh, breathe for me,
And show the world, in chains and sorrow,
How sweet thy music still can be;
How gaily, e'en mid gloom surrounding,
Thou yet canst wake at pleasure's thrill-
Like Memnon's broken image sounding.
'Mid desolation tuneful still!

'Twas light, indeed, too blest for one
Who had to turn to paths of care-
Through crowded haunts again to run,
And leave thee bright and silent there;

No more unto thy shores to come,
But, on the world's rude ocean tost,
Dream of thee sometimes, as a home
Of sunshine he had seen and lost.

Far better in thy weeping hours

To part from thee, as I do now, When mist is o'er thy blooming bowers, Like sorrow's veil on beauty's brow.

For, though unrivall'd still thy grace,
Thou dost not look, as then, too blest,

But thus in shadow, seem'st a place
Where erring man might hope to rest-

Might hope to rest, and find in thee
A gloom like Eden's, on the day
He left its shade, when every tree,
Like thine, hung weeping o'er his way.

Weeping or smiling, lovely isle!

And all the lovelier for thy tearsFor though but rare thy sunny smile,

'Tis heav'n's own glance when it appears.

Like feeling hearts, whose joys are few,
But, when indeed they come, divine—

The brightest light the sun e'er threw
Is lifeless to one gleam of thine!

[graphic][subsumed][ocr errors][merged small][ocr errors]

SHALL THE HARP, THEN, BE SILENT.1

SHALL the Harp, then, be silent, when he who first gave
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave,

Where the first-where the last of her Patriots lies?

No-faint tho' the death-song may fall from his lips,

Tho' his Harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost, Yet, yet shall it sound, 'mid a nation's eclipse,

And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost;

What a union of all the affections and powers

By which life is exalted, embellish'd, refin'd,
Was embraced in that spirit-whose centre was ours,
While its mighty circumference circled mankind !

Oh, who that loves Erin, or who that can see,
Through the waste of her annals, that epoch sublime—
Like a pyramid rais'd in the desert-where he
And his glory stand out to the eyes of all time;

That one lucid interval, snatch'd from the gloom
And the madness of ages, when fill'd with his soul,
A Nation o'erleap'd the dark bounds of her doom,

And for one sacred instant, touch'd Liberty's goal?

Who, that ever hath heard him-hath drunk at the source
Of that wonderful eloquence, all Erin's own,

In whose high-thoughted daring, the fire, and the force,
And the yet untam'd spring of her spirit are shown

An eloquence rich, wheresoever its wave

Wander'd free and triumphant, with thoughts that shone through, As clear as the brook's "stone of lustre," and gave,

With the flash of the gem, its solidity too.

« ПретходнаНастави »