WOMAN. THE day-god sitting on his western throne In WOMAN'S voice and lineaments divine! SONNET. ON HEARING CAPTAIN JAMES GLENCAIRN BURNS SING (IN INDIA) HIS FATHER'S SONGS. How dream-like is the sound of native song Heard on a foreign shore! The wanderer's ear And cold realities that round him throng, The past is present and the distant near! Such sound is sacred ever,-doubly dear When heard by patriot exiles parted long These filial echoes of the father's shell! Calcutta, August 7, 1833. CONSOLATIONS OF EXILE. [OR AN EXILE'S ADDRESS TO HIS DISTANT CHILDREN.] I. O'ER the vast realm of tempest-troubled Ocean— O'er the parched lands that vainly thirst for showers- My weary spirit panteth on the way; That mock the fleshly vision brightly play. Oh! the heart's links nor time nor change may sever, O'er hill, and vale, and plain, and sea, and river, Fair children II. still, like phantoms of delight, Ye haunt my soul on this strange distant shore, As the same stars shine through the tropic night That charmed me at my own sweet cottage door. Though I have left ye long, I love not less; Though ye are far away, I watch ye still; Though I can ne'er embrace ye, I may bless, And e'en though absent, guard ye from each ill! Still the full interchange of soul is ours, A silent converse o'er the waters wide, And Fancy's spell can speed the lingering hours, III. And not alone the written symbols show Your spirits' sacred stores of love and truth, Art's glorious magic bids the canvass glow With all your grace and loveliness and youth; The fairy forms that in my native land Oft filled my fond heart with a parent's pride, Are gathered near me on this foreign strand, And smilingly, in these strange halls, reside ; And almost I forget an exile's doom, For while your filial eyes around me gleam, Each scene and object breathes an air of home, And time and distance vanish like a dream! IV. Oh! when sweet Memory's radiant calm comes o'er O'er the hushed ocean, forms beloved of yore At such an hour I live and smile again, As light of heart as in that golden time Nor knew the shadow of a care or crime. V. From many a fruit and flower the hand of Time Hath brushed the bloom and beauty; yet mine eye, Though Life's sweet summer waneth, and my prime Of health and hope is past, can oft espy Amid the fading wilderness around Such lingering hues as Eden's holy bowers In earth's first radiance wore, and only found VI. Though this frail form hath felt the shafts of pain, Their early freshness, and soon check the sigh And here your pictured lineaments to greet! Or climb with joyous shouts the sunny hills! LINES WRITTEN ON THE RUINS OF RAJHMAHAL. HAIL, stranger, hail! whose eye shall here survey How human hopes, like human works, depart, And leave behind the ruins of the heart! SONNET. EVENING, ON THE BANKS OF THE GANGES. I WANDERED thoughtfully by Gunga's shore, Or shook the dew-drops from the leaves, unheard. Like pictured shadows 'gainst the western beam The dark boats slept, while each lone helmsman stood Still as a statue !-the strange quietude Enthralled my soul like some mysterious dream! IMPASSIONED grief is dumb-no sign or sound That friendship may not share. Oh! curse profound, The quivering lip, the quick convulsive start, But feebly tell the strife. The crowd around When sinks the strong man 'neath the sullen stream Thus see but bubbles rise,-these ill reveal The struggler's pangs! When mourners pant and teem With secret thought, and voiceless anguish feel, To mock the smothered soul's unheard appeal! |