Page images
PDF
EPUB

III.

Was it some sweet device of Faery
That mocked my steps with many a lonely glade,
And fancied wanderings with a fair-hair'd maid?
Have these things been? or what rare witchery,
Impregning with delights the charmed air,
Enlighted up the semblance of a smile

In those fine eyes? methought they spake the while

Soft soothing things, which might enforce despair
To drop the murdering knife, and let go by
His foul resolve. And does the lonely glade
Still court the footsteps of the fair-hair'd maid?
Still in her locks the gales of summer sigh?
While I forlorn do wander reckless where,
And 'mid my wanderings meet no Anna there.

IV.

METHINKS how dainty sweet it were, reclin'd
Beneath the vast out-stretching branches high
Of some old wood, in careless sort to lie,
Nor of the busier scenes we left behind
Aught envying. And, O Anna! mild-eyed maid!
Beloved! I were well content to play
With thy free tresses all a summer's day,
Losing the time beneath the greenwood shade.
Or we might sit and tell some tender tale
Of faithful vows repaid by cruel scorn,
A tale of true love, or of friend forgot;
And I would teach thee, lady, how to rail
In gentle sort, on those who practise not
Or love or pity, though of woman born.

V.

WHEN last I roved these winding wood-walks

green,

Green winding walks, and shady pathways sweet,
Oft-times would Anna seek the silent scene,
Shrouding her beauties in the lone retreat.
No more I hear her footsteps in the shade:
Her image only in these pleasant ways
Meets me self-wandering, where in happier days
I held free converse with the fair-hair'd maid.
I passed the little cottage which she loved,
The cottage which did once my all contain;
It spake of days which ne'er must come again,
Spake to my heart, and much my heart was moved.
"Now fair befall thee, gentle maid!" I said,
And from the cottage turned me with a sigh.

VI.

A TIMID grace sits trembling in her eye,
As loth to meet the rudeness of men's sight,
Yet shedding a delicious lunar light,
That steeps in kind oblivious ecstasy
The care-crazed mind, like some still melody:
Speaking most plain the thoughts which do possess
Her gentle sprite: peace, and meek quietness,

And innocent loves, and maiden purity:
A look whereof might heal the cruel smart
Of changed friends, or fortune's wrongs unkind;
Might to sweet deeds of mercy move the heart
Of him who hates his brethren of mankind.
Turned are those lights from me, who fondly yet
Past joys, vain loves, and buried hopes regret.

VII.

IF from my lips some angry accents fell,
Peevish complaint, or harsh reproof unkind,
'Twas but the error of a sickly mind
And troubled thoughts, clouding the purer well,
And waters clear, of Reason, and for me
Let this my verse the poor atonement be-
My verse,
which thou to praise wert ever inclined
Too highly, and with a partial eye to see
No blemish. Thou to me didst ever shew
Kindest affection; and would oft-times lend
An ear to the desponding love-sick lay,
Weeping my sorrows with me, who repay
But ill the mighty debt of love I owe,
Mary, to thee, my sister and my friend.

VIII.

THE FAMILY NAME.

WHAT reason first imposed thee, gentle name,
Name that my father bore, and his sire's sire,
Without reproach? we trace our stream no higher
And I, a childless man, may end the same.
Perchance some shepherd on Lincolnian plains,
In manners guileless as his own sweet flocks,
Received thee first amid the merry mocks
And arch allusions of his fellow swains.
Perchance from Salem's holier fields returned,
With glory gotten on the heads abhorr'd
Of faithless Saracens, some martial lord
Took HIS meek title, in whose zeal he burn'd.
Whate'er the fount whence thy beginnings came
No deed of mine shall shame thee, gentle name.

IX.

TO JOHN LAMB, ESQ., OF THE
SOUTH-SEA HOUSE.

JOHN, you were figuring in the gay career
Of blooming manhood with a young man's joy,
When I was yet a little peevish boy-
Though time has made the difference disappear
Betwixt our ages, which then seemed so great-
And still by rightful custom you retain
Much of the old authoritative strain,
And keep the elder brother up in state.
O! you do well in this. 'Tis man's worst deed
To let the "things that have been" run to waste,
And in the unmeaning present sink the past:
In whose dim glass even now I faintly read
Old buried forms, and faces long ago,
Which you, and I, and one more, only know,

X.

O! I could laugh to hear the midnight wind,
That, rushing on its way with careless sweep,
Scatters the ocean waves. And I could weep
Like to a child. For now to my raised mind
On wings of winds comes wild-eyed Phantasy,
And her rude visions give severe delight.
O winged bark! how swift along the night
Pass'd thy proud keel! nor shall I let go by
Lightly of that drear hour the memory,
When wet and chilly on thy deck I stood,
Unbonnetted, and gazed upon the flood,
Even till it seemed a pleasant thing to die,-
To be resolv'd into th' elemental wave,
Or take my portion with the winds that rave.

XI.

We were two pretty babes, the youngest she,
The youngest, and the loveliest far, I ween,
And INNOCENCE her name. The time has been,
We two did love each other's company;
Time was, we two had wept to have been apart.
But when by show of seeming good beguil'd,
I left the garb and manners of a child,
And my first love for man's society,
Defiling with the world my virgin heart-
My loved companion dropped a tear, and fled,
And hid in deepest shades her awful head.
Beloved, who shall tell me where thou art-
In what delicious Eden to be found-
That I may seek thee the wide world around?

'Tis darkness and conjecture all beyond;
Weak Nature fears, though Charity must hope,
And Fancy, most licentious on such themes
Where decent reverence well had kept her mute,
Hath o'er-stock'd hell with devils, and brought
down,

By her enormous fablings and mad lies,
Discredit on the gospel's serious truths
And salutary fears. The man of parts,
Poet, or prose declaimer, on his couch
Lolling, like one indifferent, fabricates
A heaven of gold, where he, and such as he,
Their heads encompassed with crowns, their heels
With fine wings garlanded, shall tread the stars
Beneath their feet, heaven's pavement, far re-
moved

From damned spirits, and the torturing cries
Of men, his brethren, fashioned of the earth,
As he was, nourish'd with the self-same bread,
Belike his kindred or companions once-
Through everlasting ages now divorced,
In chains and savage torments to repent
Short years of folly on earth. Their groans un
heard

In heav'n, the saint nor pity feels, nor care
For those thus sentenced-pity might disturb
The delicate sense and most divine repose
Of spirits angelical. Blessed be God,
The measure of his judgments is not fixed
By man's erroneous standard. He discerns
No such inordinate difference and vast
Betwixt the sinner and the saint, to doom
Such disproportion'd fates. Compared with hin,
No man on earth is holy called: they best
Stand in his sight approved, who at his feet
Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield
To him of his own works the praise, his due.

BLANK VERSE.

COMPOSED AT MIDNIGHT.

FROM broken visions of perturbed rest
I wake, and start, and fear to sleep again.
How total a privation of all sounds,
Sights, and familiar objects, man, bird, beast,
Herb, tree, or flower, and prodigal light of heaven.
'Twere some relief to catch the drowsy cry
Of the mechanic watchman, or the noise
Of revel reeling home from midnight cups.
Those are the moanings of the dying man,
Who lies in the upper chamber; restless moans,
And interrupted only by a cough
Consumptive, torturing the wasted lungs.
So in the bitterness of death he lies,
And waits in anguish for the morning's light.
What can that do for him, or what restore?
Short taste, faint sense, affecting notices,
And little images of pleasures past,

Of health, and active life-health not yet slain,
Nor the other grace of life, a good name, sold
For sin's black wages. On his tedious bed
He writhes, and turns him from the accusing light,
And finds no comfort in the sun,
but says
"When night comes I shall get a little rest."
Some few groans more, death comes, and there
an end.

THE GRANDAME.
On the green hill top,
Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof,
And not distinguish'd from its neighbour-barn,
Save by a slender-tapering length of spire,
The Grandame sleeps. A plain stone barely tells
The name and date to the chance passenger.
For lowly born was she, and long had eat,
Well-earned, the bread of service:-her's was
else

A mounting spirit, one that entertained
Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable,
Or aught unseemly. I remember well
Her reverend image: I remember, too,
With what a zeal she served her master's house;
And how the prattling tongue of garrulous age
Delighted to recount the oft-told tale
Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was,
And wondrous skilled in genealogies,
And could in apt and voluble terms discourse
Of births, of titles, and alliances;
Of marriages, and intermarriages;
Relationship remote, or near of kin ;
Of friends offended, family disgraced-
Maiden hign-born, but wayward, disobeying
Parental strict injunction, and regardless
Of unmixed blood, and ancestry remote,

Stooping to wed with one of low degree.
But these are not thy praises; and I wrong
Thy honour'd memory, recording chiefly
Things light or trivial. Better 'twere to tell,
How with a nobler zeal, and warmer love,
She served her heavenly Master. I have seen
That reverend form bent down with age and pain,
And rankling malady. Yet not for this
Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdrew
Her trust in him, her faith, and humble hope-
So meekly had she learned to bear her cross—
For she had studied patience in the school
Of Christ, much comfort she had thence derived,
And was a follower of the NAZARENE.

CHILDHOOD.

In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse
Upon the days gone by; to act in thought
Past seasons o'er, and be again a child;
To sit in fancy on the turf-clad slope,

Down which the child would roll; to pluck gay flowers,

Make posies in the sun, which the child's hand
(Childhood offended soon, soon reconciled,)
Would throw away, and straight take up again,
Then fling them to the winds, and o'er the lawn
Bound with so playful and so light a foot,
That the press'd daisy scarce declined her head.

FANCY EMPLOYED ON DIVINE
SUBJECTS.

THE truant Fancy was a wanderer ever,
A lone enthusiast maid. She loves to walk
In the bright visions of empyreal light,
By the green pastures, and the fragrant meads,
Where the perpetual flowers of Eden blow;
By crystal streams, and by the living waters,
Along whose margin grows the wondrous tree
Whose leaves shall heal the nations; underneath
Whose holy shade a refuge shall be found
From pain and want, and all the ills that wait
On mortal life, from sin and death for ever.

Him, thus engaged, the Sabbath bells salute
Sudden! his heart awakes, his ears drink in
The cheering music; his relenting soul
Yearns after all the joys of social life,
And softens with the love of human kind.

TRANSLATIONS

FROM THE LATIN OF VINCENT BOURNE.

ON A STATUE OF AN INFANT.

BEAUTIFUL Infant, who dost keep
Thy posture here, and sleep'st a marble sleep,
May the repose unbroken be,

Which the fine Artist's hand hath lent to thee,
While thou enjoy'st along with it

That which no art, or craft, could ever hit,
Or counterfeit to mortal sense,

The heaven-infused sleep of Innocence!

ON A DEAF AND DUMB ARTIST.*

AND hath thy blameless life become
A prey to the devouring tomb?
A more mute silence hast thou known,
A deafness deeper than thine own,
While Time was? and no friendly Muse,
That mark'd thy life, and knows thy dues,
Repair with quickening verse the breach,
And write thee into light and speech?
The Power that made the tongue, restrain'd
Thy lips from lies and speeches feign'd;
Who made the hearing, without wrong
Did rescue thine from Siren's song.
He let thee see the ways of men,
Which thou with pencil, not with pen,
Careful beholder, down didst note,
And all their motley actions quote,
Thyself unstain'd the while. From look
Or gesture reading, more than book,
In letter'd pride thou took'st no part,
Contented with the Silent Art,
Thyself as silent. Might I be
As speechless, deaf, and good, as he!

THE SABBATH BELLS.

THE cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one, who from the far-off hills proclaims
Tidings of good to Zion: chiefly when
Their piercing tones fall sudden on the ear
Of the contemplant, solitary man,

THE HOUSEKEEPER.

THE frugal snail, with forecast of repose,
Carries his house with him, where'er he goes;
Peeps out-and if there comes a shower of rain,
Retreats to his small domicile amain.
Touch but a tip of him, a horn-'tis well-
He curls up in his sanctuary shell.

He's his own landlord, his own tenant; stay
Long as he will, he dreads no Quarter Day.

Whom thoughts abtruse or high have chanced to Himself he boards and lodges; both invites lure

Forth from the walks of men, revolving oft,
And oft again, hard matter, which eludes
And baffles his pursuit-thought-sick and tired
Of controversy, where no end appears,
No clue to his research, the lonely man
Half wishes for society again.

And feasts, himself; sleeps with himself o' nights.
He spares the upholsterer trouble to procure
Chattels; himself is his own furniture,
And his sole riches. Wheresoe'er he roam-
Knock when you will-he's sure to be at home.

Benjamin Ferrers-Died A. D. 1782.

JOHN LEYDEN.

sity, and in six weeks received a diploma. Before sailing for India he finished a long poem entitled "Scenes of Infancy," which he left for publication after his departure. He arrived at Madras in August, 1803, and his facility in acquiring the Indian languages gave him rapid promotion. He was made a judge, a commissioner of the Court of Requests, assay-master of the mint, and Professor of Hindostanee in the College of Calcutta. He accompanied the expedition to Java, and on the capture of Batavia spent considerable time in a close room exam.

JOHN LEYDEN was born at Denholm, Rox-1 burghshire, in September, 1775. His father was a shepherd. John was taught the rudiments of education by his grandmother, and showed himself so apt a scholar that his father determined to give him the highest advantages possible. He entered the University of Edinburgh in 1790, was soon noted for his classical attainments, and became a tutor. He was licensed as a probationer of the Scottish Church in 1798, and soon after accepted the editorship of the "Scots Magazine," to which he had been a contributor. In 1801 he contributed the bal-ining a captured library, in a search for Indian lad of "The Elf-King" to Lewis's "Tales of Wonder," and wrote several ballads for the "Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border." In 1802 he edited "Scottish Descriptive Poems." He had always been interested in African explorations, had written an account of discoveries and settlements in Northern and Central Africa, and was about to start on an exploring expedition to that mysterious continent, when his friends procured him an appointment as surgeon in the East India service. He resumed the study of medicine, which he had begun at the univer

manuscripts. There he contracted a malignant fever, of which he died three days later, August 28; 1811.

In his short life Leyden had acquired a vast deal of learning, and had written voluminously on Oriental subjects. He is said to have been extremely temperate, industrious, and religious, but somewhat dogmatic in his conversation and rude in his manners and appearance. Scott, Heber, and Sydney Smith were among his warmest friends. The most correct edition of his poems was published at Kelso in 1858.

[blocks in formation]

From love, from friendship, country, torn,

To memory's fond regrets the prey,
Vile slave, thy yellow dross I scorn!
Go mix thee with thy kindred clay!

THE RETURN AFTER ABSENCE.

OH! the breeze of the mountain is soothing and sweet,

Warm breathing of love, and the friends we shall meet;

And the rocks of the desert, so rough when we roam,

Seem soft, soft as silk, on the dear path of home;

The white waves of the Jeikon, that foam through their speed,

Seem scarcely to reach to the girth of my steed.

Rejoice, O Bokhara, and flourish for aye!

Thy King comes to meet thee, and long shall he stay.

Our King is our moon, and Bokhara our skies, Where soon that fair light of the heavens shall arise

Bokhara our orchard, the cypress our king, In Bokhara's fair orchard soon destined to spring.

[blocks in formation]

TO AURELIA.

ONE kind kiss, my love, before
We bid a long adieu!

Ah! let not this fond heart deplore
Thy cold cheek's pallid hue.

One soft, sweet smile before I go !
That fancy may repeat,
And whisper, 'mid the sighs of woe,
My love, we yet shall meet.

One dear embrace, and then we part-
We part to meet no more!

I bear a sad and lonely heart
To pine on India's shore.

A heart that once has loved like mine, No second love can know !

A heart that once has throbbed with thine, Must other love forego.

THE DAISY.

STAR of the mead! sweet daughter of the day,
Whose opening flower invites the morning ray.
From the moist cheek and bosom's chilly fold
To kiss the tears of eve, the dew drops cold!
Sweet daisy, flower of love, when birds are paired,
'Tis sweet to see thee, with thy bosom bared,
Smiling in virgin innocence serene,
Thy pearly crown above thy vest of green.
The lark with sparkling eye and rustling wing
Rejoins his widowed mate in early spring,
And as he prunes his plumes of russet hue,
Swears on thy maiden blossom to be true.
Oft have I watched thy closing buds at eve,
Which for the parting sunbeams seemed to
grieve;

And when gay morning gilt the dew-bright plain,
Seen them unclasp their folded leaves again;
Nor he who sung "The daisy is so sweet!"
More dearly loved thy pearly form to greet,
When on his scarf the knight the daisy bound,
And dames to tourneys shone with daisies
crowned,

And fays forsook the purer fields above,
To hail the daisy, flower of faithful love.

THE SABBATH MORNING.

WITH silent awe I hail the sacred morn,
That slowly wakes while all the fields are still!
A soothing calm on every breeze is borne;
A graver murmur gurgles from the rill;
And echo answers softer from the hill;
And softer sings the linnet from the thorn:
The skylark warbles in a tone less shrill.
Hail, light serene! hail, sacred Sabbath morn!
The rooks float silent by in airy drove;
The sun a placid yellow lustre throws;
The gales that lately sighed along the grove,
Have hushed their downy wings in dead repose;
The hovering rack of clouds forgets to move-
So smiled the day when the first morn arose !

« PreviousContinue »