The languid sun fades in the sky,
The sap within the tree droops low;
The cold wind whispers winter nigh,
And soon the last lorn leaf must go!
Yet he who in all change can find
A providence of goodness shown,
He who is ruler o'er his mind
Is more than he who rules a throne.
A day shall come I ne'er shall see;
A day when heart and tongue lie dumb;
That day, oh Lord, be thou with me—
And oh, on earth, Thy kingdom come!
RECOLLECTIONS OF YOUTH.
A fine passage from BAILEY'S Festus.
A friend with whom in boyhood I was wont
To learn, think, laugh, weep, strive, and love together;
For we were always rivals in all things—
Together up high, springy hills, to trace
A runnel to its birth-place; to pursue
A river; to search, haunt old ruined towers,
And muse in them; to scale the cloud-clad hills
While thunders murmured in our very ear;
To leap the lair of the live cataract,
Or crouch behind the broad white waterfall-
Tongue of the glen, like to a hidden thought-
To reach, perchance, some long, green floating flag,
Just when the sun's hot lip first touched the stream
Reddening to be so kissed; and oft at night,
Bewildered and bewitched by favourite stars,
We would breathe ourselves amid unfooted snows,
For there is poetry where aught is pure;
Or over the still, dark heath, leap like harts
Through the broad moonlight, for we felt wherever
We leaped the golden gorse, or lowly ling,
We could not be from home-that friend is gone!
There's the whole universe before our souls.
Where shall we meet next? Shall we meet again?
Oh! might it be in some far, happy world,
That I may light upon his lonely soul,
Hard by some broad, blue stream, where high the hills, Wood-bearded, sweep to its brink-musing, as wont, With love-like sadness upon sacred things.
Brilliants.
A POET'S HOPE.
But do not be impatient,
If the same old chords still ring;
And find the same old sorrows,
ye
In the newest songs I sing.
Wait-ye shall yet hear fading,
This echo of my pain;
When a fresh spring of poems
Blooms from my heart again.
Who, in right spirit, communes with the forms
Of nature-who with understanding heart
Doth know and love such objects as excite
No morbid passions, no disquietude,
No vengeance, and no hatred,-needs must feel
The joy of that pure principle of love
So deeply, that, unsatisfied with aught
Less pure and exquisite, he cannot choose
But seek for objects of a kindred love
In fellow natures, and a kindred joy.
Accordingly he by degrees perceives
His feelings of aversion soften'd down;
A holy tenderness pervades his frame.
His sanity of reasoning not impaired—
Say rather, all his thoughts now flowing clear,
From a clear mountain flowing -he looks around
And seeks for good: and finds the good he seeks,
Until abhorrence and contempt are things
He only knows by name; and if he hear,
From other mouths, the language which they speak,
He is compassionate, and has no thought,
No feeling which can overcome his love.
Last when I saw thee, thou didst sweetly play
The gentle thief, and stolest my heart away-
Render 't again, or else give me thine own
In change; for two for thee (when I have none)
Too many are; else I must say thou art
A sweet-faced creature with a double heart.
To sit on rocks, to muse o'er flood and fell,
To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been;
To climb the trackless mountain all
With the wild flock that never needs a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;
This is not solitude-'tis but to hold
Converse with nature's charms, and view her stores unrolled.
But midst the crowd, the hum, the shock of men,
To hear, to see, to feel, and to possess,
And roam along, the world's tired denizen,
With none who bless us, none whom we can bless;
Minions of splendour shrinking from distress!
None that, with kindred consciousness endued,
If we were not, would seem to smile the less,
Of all that flattered, followed, sought and sued;-
This is to be alone; this, this is solitude!
What is life worth without a heart to feel
The great and lovely, and the poetry
And sacredness of things? For all things are
Sacred; the eye of God is on them all,
And hallows all unto it. It is fine
To stand upon some lofty mountain-height
And feel the spirit stretch into a view;
To joy in what might be, if will and power,
For good, would work together but one hour.
Yet millions never think a noble thought,
But, with brute hate of brightness, bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
They fell devoted, but undying;
The very gale their names seemed sighing;
The waters murmured of their name,
The woods were peopled with their fame ;
The silent pillar, lone and grey,
Claimed kindred with their sacred clay;
Their spirits wrapped the dusky mountain,
Their memory sparkled o'er the fountain;
The meanest rill, the mightiest river
Rolls mingling with their fame for ever.
KING'S COLLEGE CHAPEL, CAMBRIDGE.
Tax not the royal saint with vain expense,
With ill-matched aims the architect who planned-
Albeit labouring for a scanty band
Of white-robed scholars only-this immense
And glorious work of fine intelligence!
Give all thou canst; high heaven rejects the lore
Of nicely calculated less or more;
So deemed the man who fashioned for the sense
These lofty pillars, spread that branching roof
Self-poised, and scooped into ten thousand cells,
Where light and shade repose, where music dwells
Lingering and wandering on as loath to die;
Like thoughts whose very sweetness yieldeth proof
That they were born for immortality.
They dreamt not of a perishable home
Who thus could build! Be mine, in hours of fear
Or grovelling thought, to seek a refuge here;
Or through the aisles of Westminster to roam;
Where bubbles burst, and folly's dancing foam
Melts, if it cross the threshold; where the wreath
Of awe-struck wisdom droops :- -or let my path
Lead to that younger pile, whose sky-like dome
Hath typified by reach of daring art
Infinity's embrace; whose guardian crest,
The silent cross, among the stars shall spread,
As now, when she hath also seen her breast
Filled with mementos, satiate with its part
Of grateful England's overflowing dead.
Translated by Mr. OXENFORD, from the French of ARMAND GOUFFÉ, a renowned member of the Cavean Moderne, and a writer of musical dramas. He was born in 1773, and died in 1845. The following song is dated 1803.
At last, at last it rains,
The vine which was athirst
Its strength once more regains,
By heavenly bounty nursed.
So let your glasses clink
To water,-gift divine:
'Tis water makes us drink
Good wine.
Through water, friends, 'tis true
The deluge once we had;
But, thanks to Heaven, there grew
The good beside the bad.
Our grave historians think
The flood produced the vine:
'Tis water makes us drink
Good wine.
How great is my delight,
When, with their precious store,
The vessels are in sight,
Before my very door;
And on the river's brink
Land juice from
'Tis water makes us drink
In weather fine and dry
The miller drinks his fill
Of water, with a sigh ;-
His mill is standing still.
When water flows, I think,
No longer he'll repine:
'Tis water makes him drink
Good wine.
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