PALMYRA. SAD city of the silent place! The' eternal ruins frowning stand, Where not a gentle hill doth swell, Where not a hermit shrub doth dwell; And where the song of wandering flood Ne'er voiced the fearful solitude. How sweetly sad our pensive tears Its grey head through the mists of years! O'er Beauty's dark and desert bed And in the domes where once she smiled, He peep's through Time's cold windows there; The moss of ages is their pall, And dull oblivion hides them all! Yet there, though now no mortal eye Go read thy fate, thou thing of clay, Constable's Edinburgh Magazine. Г. IMPROMPTU ON THE BLINDNESS OF MILTON. WHEN Milton's eye ethereal lights first drew, He closed his eyes on earth, to look on heaven! -- G. P. B. We are such stuff As dreams are made off; and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. Он, man! before thy feverish brain First bends the burning heart of youth Deems like its own, a stranger's truth, Then life is one enchanted dream! Pray but for life our faith to prove, But soon life's dangerous morn is past, And well for us 'tis so And well if o'er its sun be cast No cloud of lasting woe. . Then tears must fall, as sad as vain, The homage to our pride; Yet, broken once the worthless chain, That bond no more is tied. We wake, the light is round us shed,— The passion of the hour is fled,— In wisdom we our idol fly, And this is called-Inconstancy! Then worldly dreams the spirits sway, And still the waking's pain; And hopeless still we turn away, And hopeless turn again : And faster, as the phantoms fly, Pursues their willing slave; And while their lustre fills the eye, But years will stoop the brow at last,— And trembling o'er her tomb, To heaven, a last resource-we fly, The Graces. THE CHARM. FROM THE SPANISH. WIND the shell, bind the spell ;- Bind it on the maiden's soul! Oceans may between you sweep, But the spell's as strong and deep! Anguish, distance, time are vainDeath alone can loose the chain. Literary Gazette. HELEN. I KNEW not that the world contained Nor deemed that where such beauty reigned For I had marked, where eyes were bright, Too well their owners knew their power, Or one effulgent glance surrender, I knew not, where the form displayed And sentiment there raise her shrine; Had beauty's varied charms combined, There oft was wanting feeling's traceThe beam of soul-the ray of mind! And vain has been each studied art, And futile every cold endeavour!— The light that comes not from the heart A moment shines-then fades for ever. But I, at last, have turned from those The summer sky is calm-serene— As if some bright-some heavenly scene And view the lights around it gleaming, They seem to be the living rays From heart, and soul, and spirit beaming. London Magazine. V. D. |