VERSES WRITTEN ON A BLANK LEAF IN THE SMALL VOLUME OF
WHEN the shades of night retire
From the morn's advancing beams,
Ere the hills are tipt with fire,
And the radiance lights the streams,
Lo, the lark begins her song,
Early on the wing, and long.
Summon'd by the signal notes,
Soon her sisters quit the lawn,
With their wildly warbling throats,
Soaring in the dappled dawn;
Brighter, warmer spread the rays,
Louder, sweeter swell their lays.
Nestlings, in their grassy beds,
Hearkening to the joyful sound,
Heavenward point their little heads,
Lowly twittering from the ground,
Ere their wings are fledged to fly,
To the chorus in the sky.
Thus, fair Minstrels, while ye sing,
Teaching infant minds to raise
To the universal King
Humble hymns of prayer and praise,
may all who hear your voice
Look, and listen, and rejoice!
Faltering like the skylark's young,
While your numbers they record,
Soon may every heart and tongue
Learn to magnify the Lord;
And your strains divinely sweet,
Unborn millions thus repeat.
Minstrels! what reward is due
For this labour of your love?
-Through eternity may You,
In the Paradise above,
Round the dear Redeemer's feet,
infant readers meet!
A HAIL-STONE, from the cloud set free,
Shot, slanting coastward, o'er the sea,
And thus, as eastern tales relate,
Lamented its untimely fate :
"Last moment born, condemn'd in this,
The next absorpt in yon abyss;
"Twere better ne'er to know the light,
Than see and perish at first sight."
-An oyster heard, and as it fell,
Welcomed the outcast to her shell,
Where meekly suffering that "sea-change,"
It grew to" something rich and strange,"
And thence became the brightest gem
That decks the Sultan's diadem,
Turn'd from a particle of ice
Into a pearl of priceless price.
-Thus can the power that rules o'er all
Exalt the humble by their fall.
A dew-drop, in the flush of morn,
Sparkled upon a blossom'd thorn,
Reflecting from its mirror pure
The sun himself in miniature.
Dancing for gladness on the spray,
It miss'd its hold, and slid away;
A lark, just mounting up to sing,
Caught the frail trembler on its wing,
But, borne aloft through gathering clouds,
Left it entangled with their shrouds:
Lost, and for ever lost, it seem'd,
When suddenly the sun forth gleam'd,
And round the showery vapours threw
A rainbow,-where our drop of dew
Midst the prismatic hues of heaven
Outshone the beams of all the seven.
When virtue falls, 'tis not to die,
But be translated to the sky.
A babe into existence came,
A feeble, helpless, suffering frame;
It breathed on earth a little while,
Then vanish'd, like a tear, a smile,
That springs and falls,-that peers and parts,
The grief, the joy of loving hearts;
The grave received the body dead
Where all that live must find their bed.
Sank then the soul to dust and gloom,
Worms and corruption in the tomb?
No,-midst the rainbow round the throne,
Caught up to paradise, it shone,
And yet shall shine, until the day
When heaven and earth must pass away,
And those that sleep in Jesus here,
With him in glory shall appear.
Then shall that soul and body meet;
And when his jewels are complete,
Midst countless millions, form a gem
In the Redeemer's diadem,
Wherewith as thorns his brows once bound,
He for his sufferings shall be crown'd;
Raised from the ignominious tree
To the right-hand of Majesty,
Head over all created things,
The Lord of lords, the King of kings.
Stanzas on reading the Verses entitled "Resignation," written by Chatterton, a few days before his melancholy end.
A DYING Swan of Pindus sings
In wildly mournful strains;
As Death's cold fingers snap the strings,
His suffering lyre complains.
Soft as the mist of evening wends
Along the shadowy vale;
Sad as in storms the moon ascends,
And turns the darkness pale;
So soft the melting numbers flow
From his harmonious lips;
So sad his wo-wan features show,
Just fading in eclipse.
The Bard, to dark despair resign'd,
With his expiring art,
Sings, midst the tempest of his mind,
The shipwreck of his heart.
If Hope still seem to linger nigh,
And hover o'er his head,
Her pinions are too weak to fly,
Or Hope ere now had fled.
Rash Minstrel! who can hear thy songs,
Nor long to share thy fire?
Who read thine errors and thy wrongs,
Nor execrate the lyre?
The lyre, that sunk thee to the grave,
When bursting into bloom,
That lyre the power to Genius gave
To blossom in the tomb.
fail with years,
Shall TIME thy strains recite;
And while thy story swells his tears,
Thy song shall charm his flight.
A DAUGHTER (C. M.) TO HER MOTHER,
ON HER BIRTH-DAY, NOVEMBER 25, 1811.
THIS the day to me most dear
In the changes of the year;
Spring, the fields and woods adorning,
Spring may boast a gayer morning;
Summer noon, with brighter beams,
Gild the mountains and the streams;
Autumn, through the twilight vale,
Breathe a more delicious gale:
Yet though stern November reigns
Wild and wintry o'er the plains,
Never does the morning rise
Half so welcome to mine eyes;
Noontide glories never shed
Rays so beauteous round my head;
Never looks the evening scene
So enchantingly serene,
As on this returning day,
When, in spirit rapt away,
Joys and sorrows I have known,
In the years for ever flown,
Wake at every sound and sight,
Reminiscence of delight:
All around me, all above,
Witnessing a Mother's love.
|