THE FIRE-FLY. ELL us, O Guide, by what strange natural laws night, Such lunar brightness? Why, for what grave cause Is this earth-insect crowned with heavenly light? Peace! Rest content! See where, by cliff and dell, Past tangled forest-paths and silent river, And thou, if robbed of that strange right of birth, A STILL PLACE. NDER what beechen shade, or silent oak, Lies the mute sylvan now, mysterious Pan? Once, (while rich Peneus and Ilissus ran Clear from their fountains,) as the morning broke, 'Tis said the Satyr with Apollo spoke, And to harmonious strife with his wild reed Challenged the god, whose music was indeed Divine, and fit for heaven. Each played, and woke Beautiful sounds to life,-deep melodies; One blew his pastoral pipe with such nice care That flocks and birds all answered him ; and one ; Shook his immortal showers upon the air. That music hath ascended to the sun; But where the other? Speak, ye dells and trees! LIFE OME, track with me this little vagrant rill, Wandering its wild course from the mountain's breast; Now with a brink fantastic, heather-drest, And playing with the stooping flowers at will; And hurries on, leaping with sparkling zest So let us live. Is not the life well spent Which loves the lot that kindly Nature weaves For all inheriting, or adorning, earth? E hasten to the dead! What seek ye there, Of the idle brain, which the world's livery wear? O thou quick heart, which pantest to possess All that anticipation feigneth fair ! Thou vainly curious mind, which wouldest guess Whence thou didst come, and whither thou mayst go, And that which never yet was known wouldst know— Oh, whither hasten ye, that thus ye press With such swift feet life's green and pleasant path, Seeking alike from happiness and woe A refuge in the cavern of grey death? O heart, and mind, and thoughts! what thing do you Hope to inherit in the grave below? TO THE NILE. ONTH after month the gathered rains descend And from the desert's ice-girt pinnacles Where Frost and Heat in strange embraces blend Girt there with blasts and meteors Tempest dwells Urging its waters to their mighty end. O'er Egypt's land of memory floods are level, And they are thine, O Nile-and well thou knowes: That soul-sustaining airs and blasts of evil And fruits and poisons spring where'er thou flowest. Like the great flood to Egypt, ever be. |