ADDRESSED TO.
LET us quit the leafy arbour,
And the torrent murmuring by :
For the sun is in his harbour,
Weary of the open sky.
Evening now unbinds the fetters
Fashioned by the glowing light;
All that breathe are thankful debtors
To the harbinger of night.
Yet by some grave thoughts attended
Eve renews her calm career;
For the day that now is ended
Is the longest of the year.
Laura! sport, as now thou sportest,
On this platform, light and free;
Take thy bliss, while longest, shortest,
Are indifferent to thee!
Who would check the happy feeling
That inspires the linnet's song?
Who would stop the swallow, wheeling
On her pinions swift and strong?
Yet at this impressive season,
Words which tenderness can speak
From the truths of homely reason,
Might exalt the loveliest cheek;
And, while shades to shades succeeding
Steal the landscape from the sight,
I would urge this moral pleading,
Last forerunner of "Good night!"
SUMMER ebbs ;—each day that follows
Is a reflux from on high,
Tending to the darksome hollows
Where the frosts of winter lie.
He who governs the creation,
In His providence, assigned
Such a gradual declination
To the life of human kind.
Yet we mark it not ;-fruits redden,
Fresh flowers blow, as flowers have blown,
And the heart is loth to deaden
Hopes that she so long hath known.
Be thou wiser, youthful Maiden!
And when thy decline shall come,
Let not flowers, or boughs fruit-laden,
Hide the knowledge of thy doom.
Now, even now, ere wrapped in slumber,
Fix thine eyes upon the sea
That absorbs time, space, and number
Look thou to Eternity!
Follow thou the flowing river
On whose breast are thither borne
All deceived, and each deceiver,
Through the gates of night and morn;
Through the year's successive portals; Through the bounds which many a star Marks, not mindless of frail mortals, When his light returns from far.
Thus when thou with Time hast travelled
Towards the mighty gulf of things,
And the mazy stream unravelled
With thy best imaginings:
Think, if thou on beauty leanest,
Think how pitiful that stay,
Did not virtue give the meanest
Charms superior to decay.
Duty, like a strict preceptor,
Sometimes frowns, or seems to frown;
Choose her thistle for thy sceptre,
While youth's roses are thy crown.
Grasp it, if thou shrink and tremble,
Fairest damsel of the green,
Thou wilt lack the only symbol
That proclaims a genuine queen ;
And insures those palms of honour
Which selected spirits wear,
Bending low before the Donor,
Lord of heaven's unchanging year!
WITHIN the mind strong fancies work,
A deep delight the bosom thrills,
Oft as I pass along the fork
Of these fraternal hills:
Where, save the rugged road, we find
No appanage of human kind;
Nor hint of man; if stone or rock
Seem not his handy-work to mock
By something cognizably shaped ;
Mockery-or model roughly hewn,
And left as if by earthquake strewn,
Or from the flood escaped :-
Altars for Druid service fit;
(But where no fire was ever lit,
Unless the glow-worm to the skies
Thence offer nightly sacrifice)
Wrinkled Egyptian monument;
Green moss-grown tower; or hoary tent; Tents of a camp that never shall be raised; On which four thousand years have gazed!
Ye plough-shares sparkling on the slopes!
Ye snow-white lambs that trip
Imprisoned 'mid the formal props
Of restless ownership!
Ye trees, that may to-morrow fall
To feed the insatiate Prodigal !
Lawns, houses, chattels, groves, and fields,
All that the fertile valley shields;
Wages of folly-baits of crime,-
Of life's uneasy game the stake,
Playthings that keep the eyes awake
Of drowsy, dotard Time ;-
O care! O guilt!-O vales and plains,
Here, 'mid his own unvexed domains,
A genius dwells, that can subdue
At once all memory of you,-
Most potent when mists veil the sky,
Mists that distort and magnify ;
While the coarse rushes, to the sweeping breeze, Sigh forth their ancient melodies!
List to those shriller notes! that march
Perchance was on the blast,
When, through this Height's inverted arch,
Rome's earliest legion passed!
They saw, adventurously impelled,
And older eyes than theirs beheld,
This block-and yon, whose church-like frame
Gives to the savage pass its name.
Aspiring road! that lov'st to hide
Thy daring in a vapoury bourn,
Not seldom may the hour return
When thou shalt be my guide;
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