OSTEND.

(ON HEARING THE BELLS AT SEA.)

OW sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal!

As when at opening morn the fragrant breeze
Breathes on the trembling sense of pale disease,

So piercing to my heart their force I feel!

And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall!
And now along the white and level tide,
They fling their melancholy music wide;
Bidding me many a tender thought recall
Of summer days, and those delightful years
When by my native streams, in life's fair prime,
The mournful magic of their mingling chime
First waked my wondering childhood into tears!
But seeming now, when all those days are o'er,
The sounds of joy once heard and heard no more.

VALCLUSA.

HAT though, Valclusa, the fond bard be fled,
That wooed his fair in thy sequestered bowers,
Long loved her living, long bemoaned her dead,
And hung her visionary shrine with flowers!
What though no more he teach thy shades to mourn
The hapless chances that to love belong,

As erst, when drooping o'er her turf forlorn,
He charmed wild Echo with his plaintive song!

Yet still, enamoured of the tender tale,

Pale Passion haunts thy grove's romantic gloom,
Yet still soft music breathes in every gale,

Still undecayed the fairy garlands bloom,

Still heavenly incense fills each fragrant vale,
Still Petrarch's Genius weeps o'er Laura's tomb.

AT LEMNOS.

IN this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright
The cautious pilot, ten revolving years
Great Pæan's son, unwonted erst to tears,

Wept o'er his wound: alike each rolling light
Of heaven he watched, and blamed its lingering flight :
By day the sea-mew, screaming round his cave,
Drove slumber from his eyes; the chiding wave
And savage howlings chased his dreams by night.
Hope still was his : in each low breeze, that sighed

Through his rude grot, he heard a coming oar;
In each white cloud a coming sail he spied;

Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar

Of Eta's torrents, or the hoarser tide

That parts famed Trachis from the Euboic shore.

JOULD then the Babes from yon unsheltered cot
Implore thy passing charity in vain?

Too thoughtless Youth! what tho' thy happier

lot

Insult their life of poverty and pain.

What tho' their Maker doomed them thus forlorn

To brook the mockery of the taunting throng, Beneath th' oppressor's iron scourge to mourn, To mourn, but not to murmur at his wrong! Yet when their last late evening shall decline,

Their evening cheerful, though their day distress'd, A Hope perhaps more heavenly-bright than thine, A Grace by thee unsought, and unpossess'd,

A Faith more fixed, a Rapture more divine

Shall gild their passage to eternal Rest.

IT is a beauteous evening, calm and free;
The holy time is quiet as a nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven is on the sea:
Listen! the mighty Being is awake,

And doth with his eternal motion make
A sound like thunder-everlastingly.

Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here,
If thou appear untouched by solemn thought,
Thy nature is not therefore less divine:
Thou liest in Abraham's bosom all the year,
And worship'st at the Temple's inner shrine,
God being with thee when we know it not.