But every feather of thy wing Few were thy days, thy pleasures few, On sunbeams every moment flew, In spring to build thy curious nest, Happy beyond the lot of kings, When late, to secret griefs a prey, Wild from the copse an artless lay, Perhaps 't was thy last evening song, In sweetest melody along, And harmonized my soul. Now, blithe musician! now no more But jarring drums at distance roar, And yonder howl the hounds: The hounds, that through the echoing wood The panting hare pursue; The drums, that wake the cry of blood, -The voice of glory too! Here at my feet thy frail remains, Unwept, unburied lie, Like victims on embattled plains, Forsaken where they die. Yet could the muse, whose strains rehearse Kings should not scorn thy tomb. Though brief as thine my tuneful date, While doomed the lingering pangs to feel One truant sigh from these I'll steal, A MIDNIGHT THOUGHT. IN a land of strange delight, Is the dream of Nature flown? Man extinct, and I alone Breathing through the formless void? No-my soul, in GOD rejoice; Through the gloom His light I see, In the silence hear His voice, And His hand is over me. When I slumber in the tomb, He will guard my resting-place; Fearless in the day of doom, NIGHT. NIGHT is the time for rest;- Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Night is the time for dreams;— The gay romance of life, When truth that is, and truth that seems, Mix in fantastic strife; Ah! visions less beguiling far Night is the time for toil;— Night is the time to weep ; To wet with unseen tears Hopes, that were angels at their birth, Night is the time to watch ;— The full moon's earliest glance, Night is the time for care;- Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host, Night is the time to think ;- Discerns beyond the abyss of night Night is the time to pray; Our Saviour oft withdrew Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, Night is the time for death;— Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign THE MOLEHILL. TELL me, thou dust beneath my feet, The Mole, that scoops with curious toil Thinks not she ploughs a human soil, But, oh! where'er she turns the ground, Once every atom of this mound Lived, breathed, and felt, like me. Like me, these elder-born of clay Bore the brief burden of a day, Far in the regions of the morn The spirits of the desert dwell There the pale pilgrim, as he stands, Destruction joys, amid those scenes, But towers and temples crushed by Time, To me less mournfully sublime Through all this hillock's crumbling mould Once the warm life-blood ran; Here thine original behold, And here thy ruins, Man! Methinks this dust yet heaves with breath: Tell me,-in this small hill of death, By wafting winds and flooding rains What scene of terror and amaze What hand invisible displays The secrets of the tomb? |