THE PROSPECT. Does the face of nature shew 45 The gloomy pine, the poplar blue, Lies along a level lawn ; On which a dark hill, steep and high, His sides are cloth'd with flowing wood; 46 THE PROSPECT. So both a safety from the wind 'Tis now the raven's bleak abode ; A sunbeam in a winter's day, And see the rivers, how they run DYER. VILLAGE BELLS. Он, merry are the village bells that sound with soothing chime From the dim old tower, grown grey beneath the shadowy touch of time; [air, And gaily are they borne along upon the summer Telling of bridal happiness to the youthful and the fair; They give a murmur of delight to earth, and sky, and seas, That mingles with the running streams, and floats upon the breeze. 'Tis past, the bridal glee is past, those echoing peals are o'er ; But the sweet, the holy Sabbath comes-we hear them now once more, With a message from the heavens of love, a voice that speaks to all; Unto the temple of our God, unto His shrine they call. Whether your home's in halls of state, or by the lowly dells, Come forth and listen to the sounds of the hallowed Sabbath bells! Ye tuneful records, yours it is to watch the pace of time, And mark the footfalls of each year with deep and soothing chime; 48 VILLAGE BELLS. Coming at midnight's silent hour, when all is dim and drear, 'Tis yours to breathe the last farewell of the sad expiring year; And while we bid its hopes and fears, its fleeting hours adieu, 'Tis yours to hail with cheerful voice the birthday of the new. And yet once more your music breaks upon my listening ear, Though not the gaily sounding notes we love so well to hear; Changed is your message to the heart, your joyous tone is fled; Ye speak to us of buried hopes, a requiem for the dead! Some home to-day is desolate, a soul from earth is free. Mortal, the knell thou hearest now full soon may toll for thee ! O changeful bells, that swell'd but now the tide of human bliss, What ministers of grief ye seem, in such an hour as this! Say, is your knell a sorrowing one, for the lovely doomed to die, Youth's early blush upon their cheek, its radiance in their eye? THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. 49 Or do ye mourn in mockery for the beings frail as fair, Whose lives, like golden evening clouds, have melted into air? Yet such, alas, is human life; woe for the haughty breath! To-day in health and power 'tis raised, to-morrow stilled in death. One voice proclaims our joy and grief, our wishes, hopes, and fears; The eye that brightly beams to-day, to-morrow dims with tears. A few short years, a few brief suns, in earthly homes we dwell, Then life with all its dreams shall be but as that passing bell. E. CARRINGTON. THE DEATH OF THE FLOWERS. THE melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year, Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere; Heap'd in the hollows of the grove the wither'd leaves lie dead; They rustle to the eddying gust and to the rabbits' tread. |