STRE MELANCHOLY. A FRAGMENT. TRETCHED on a mouldered Abbey's broadest wall, Where ruining ivies propped the ruins steepHer folded arms wrapping her tattered pall, Had Melancholy mused herself to sleep. The fern was pressed beneath her hair, The dark green adder's tongue was there; And still as past the flagging sea-gale weak, The long lank leaf bowed fluttering o'er her cheek. That pallid cheek was flushed: her eager look Beamed eloquent in slumber! Inly wrought, Imperfect sounds her moving lips forsook, And her bent forehead worked with troubled Strange was the dream [thought. M TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE. IMITATED FROM STOLBERG. I. ARK this holy chapel well! The birth-place, this, of William Tell. Here, where stands God's altar dread, Stood his parents' marriage-bed. II. Here, first, an infant to her breast, Him his loving mother prest; And kissed the babe, and blessed the day, III. "Vouchsafe him health, O God! and give But God had destined to do more IV. God gave him reverence of laws, The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein! V. To Nature and to Holy Writ Where flashed and roared the torrent, oft VI. The straining oar and chamois chase On wave and wind the boy would toss, VII. He knew not that his chosen hand, A CHRISTMAS CAROL. TH I. HE shepherds went their hasty way, Where the Virgin-Mother lay: And now they checked their eager tread, II. They told her how a glorious light, Blest Mother! thou shalt sing the song 111. She listened to the tale divine, And closer still the Babe she prest; And while she cried, the Babe is mine! The milk rushed faster to her breast: Joy rose within her, like a summer's morn ; IV. Thou Mother of the Prince of Peace, Sweet music's loudest note, the poet's story,Did'st thou ne'er love to hear of fame and glory? V. And is not War a youthful king, Him Earth's majestic monarchs hail Their friend, their playmate! and his bold bright eye Compels the maiden's love-confessing sigh. VI. "Tell this in some more courtly scene, To maids and youths in robes of state! I am a woman poor and mean, And therefore is my soul elate. War is a ruffian, all with guilt defiled, VII. "A murderous fiend, by fiends adored, He kills the sire and starves the son; The husband kills, and from her board Steals all his widow's toil had won; Plunders God's world of beauty; rends away All safety from the night, all comfort from the day. VIII. "Then wisely is my soul elate, That strife should vanish, battle cease: I'm poor and of a low estate, The Mother of the Prince of Peace. Joy rises in me, like a summer's morn: Peace, Peace on Earth! the Prince of Peace is born." I HUMAN LIFE, ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. F dead, we cease to be; if total gloom Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-guests, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul like Milton's can know death; O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes! Surplus of nature's dread activity, Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finished vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She formed with restless hands unconsciously! Blank accident! nothing's anomaly ! If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, Go, weigh thy dreams, and be thy hopes, thy fears, The counter-weights!-Thy laughter and thy tears Mean but themselves, each fittest to create, And to repay the other! Why rejoices Thy heart with hollow joy for hollow good? Why cowl thy face beneath the mourner's hood, Why waste thy sighs, and thy lamenting voices, Image of image, ghost of ghostly elf, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? |