For the soul, which its innocent glances confessed, No more shall the accents, whose tones were more dear Than the sweetest of sounds even music can make, In notes full of tenderness fall on my ear; If I catch them in dreams, all is still when I wake! No more the gay smiles that those features displayed, I must not, I cannot, and dare not repine. However enchantingly flattering and fair, Were the hopes, that for thee, I had ventured to build, Can a frail, finite mortal presume to declare That the future those hopes would have ever fulfilled? In the world thou hast left, there is much to allure Temptation, or sooner or later, had found thee; 'Till the dark clouds of vice, gathering gloomily round thee, Had enwrapt thee for ever in horror and night. But now, in the loveliest bloom of the soul, While the heart yet was pangless, and true, and unstained; Ere the world one vain wish by its witcheries stole, What it could not confer, thou for ever hast gained! Like a dew-drop, kissed off by the sun's morning beam, THE HOUR OF DISTRESS. Barton. O 'tis not while the fairy-breeze fans the green ocean, That the safety and strength of the bark can be shewn ; And 'tis not in prosperity's hour the devotion, The fervour and truth of a friend can be known. No! the bark must be proved when the tempest is howl ing, When dangers and mountain-waves close on her press; The friend, when the sky of adversity's scowling, For the touchstone of friendship's—the hour of distress. When prosperity's day-star beams clear and unclouded, Then thousands will mingle their shouts round its throne, But oh! let its light for one moment be shrouded, And the smiles of the faithless-like shadows are gone. Then comes the true friend, who to guile is a stranger, O'tis sweet 'mid the horrors of bleak desolation, Grief fades like the night-cloud, bliss mingles with sorrows, O'tis they whose life's path has been clouded and cheerless That can feel the full burst of pure transport and bliss, When the trusted and tried friend comes ready and fearless Their woes to relieve in the hour of distress. Past griefs may yet cease to be thought on, but never May the blessing of God rest for ever and ever Goldie. A FRAGMENT.. O leave the lily on its stem, O leave the rose upon the spray, A cypress and a myrtle bough This morn around my harp you twined, Its murmurs in the wind. And now a tale of love and woe, A woeful tale of love I sing; Hark, gentle maidens, hark! it sighs, And trembles on the string. But most, my own dear Genevieve, Few sorrows hath she of her own, The songs All thoughts, all passions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of love, And feed his sacred flame. O ever in my waking dreams |