Nor only o'er the dial's face, This silent phantom, day by day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Steals moments, months, and years away; From hoary rock and aged tree, From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls, From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea, From every blade of grass it falls. O'er evanescent joys; Like flow'rets glittering with the dews of morn Then Time, the conqueror, will suspend His scythe, a trophy, o'er my tomb, Whose moving shadow shall portend Each frail beholder's doom. O'er the wide earth's illumined space, Though time's triumphant flight be shown, The truest index on its face Points from the churchyard stone. A MOTHER'S LOVE. A MOTHER'S love,-how sweet the name! What is a mother's love? -A noble, pure, and tender flame, Enkindled from above, To bless a heart of earthly mould; This is a mother's love. To bring a helpless babe to light, In its existence lose her own, And live and breathe in it alone; This is a mother's love. Its weakness in her arms to bear; Feed it from love's own fountain there, And lull it there to rest; Then while it slumbers watch its breath, To mark its growth from day to day, Catch from its eye the earliest ray To smile and listen while it talks, And can a mother's love grow cold? Can she forget her boy? Ten thousand voices answer, "No!" Ye clasp your babes and kiss; The infant, rear'd alone for earth, A parent's heart may prove a snare; Even with a mother's love. Blest infant! whom his mother taught And pour'd upon his dawning thought Behold that mother's love.* Blest mother! who, in wisdom's path, By her own parent trod, Thus taught her son to flee the wrath, Ah! youth, like him enjoy your prime, Taught by that mother's love. That mother's love!-how sweet the name! That kindles from above Within a heart of earthly mould, As much of heaven as heart can hold, Nor through eternity grows cold: THE GLOW-WORM. The male of this insect is said to be a fly, which the feinale caterpillar attracts in the night by the lustre of her train. WHEN evening closes nature's eye, The glow-worm lights her little spark, To captivate her favourite fly, And tempt the rover through the dark. Conducted by a sweeter star Than all that deck the fields above, He fondly hastens from afar, To soothe her solitude with love. Thus in this wilderness of tears, Amidst the world's perplexing gloom, The transient torch of Hymen cheers The pilgrim journeying to the tomb. Unhappy he whose hopeless eye Turns to the light of love in vain ; 2 Tim. i. 5, and iii. 14, 15. THE OAK. IMITATED FROM THE ITALIAN OF METASTASIO. THE tall oak, towering to the skies, The fury of the wind defies, From age to age, in virtue strong, O'erwhelm'd at length upon the plain, It puts forth wings, and sweeps the main ; THE WIDOW AND THE FATHERLESS. Though I have seen thy form depart I hold thee in mine inmost heart; Farewell on earth: Heaven claim'd its own; Ha! those small voices, silver sweet! THE BIBLE. WHAT is the world?-A wildering maze, All broad, and winding, and aslope, Millions of pilgrims throng those roads, Down to eternal night: -One humble path, that never bends, Is there a guide to show that path? THE DAISY IN INDIA. Supposed to be addressed by the Rev. Dr. Carey, the learn ed and illustrious Baptist missionary at Serampore, to the first plant of this kind, which sprang up unexpectedly in his garden, out of some English earth, in which other seeds had been conveyed to him from this country. With great care and nursing, the doctor has been enabled to perpetuate the daisy in India, as an annual only, raised by seed preserved from season to season. HUMAN LIFE. How few and evil are thy days, Trouble and peril haunt thy ways: And dost Thou look on such a one? A worm, for what a worm hath done As fail the waters from the deep, Man lieth down in dreamless sleep; Man lieth down, no more to wake, -O! hide me, till thy wrath be past, Hide me, where hope may anchor fast In my Redeemer's grave. THRICE Welcome, little English flower! Thrice welcome, little English flower! Whose tribes, beneath our natal skies, Shut close their leaves while vapours lower; Thrice welcome, little English flower, Thrice welcome, little English flower! The fairy sports of infancy, Youth's golden age, and manhood's prime, Thrice welcome, little English flower! Thrice welcome, little English flower! Wine, oil, refreshment; he was heal'd; In prison I saw him next, condemn'd Then in a moment to my view THE STRANGER AND HIS FRIEND. "Ye have done it unto me."-Matt. xxv. 40. A Poon wayfaring man of grief I spied him, where a fountain burst Clear from the rock; his strength was gone; I ran to raise the sufferer up; Thrice from the stream he drain'd my cup, Dipt, and return'd it running o'er; I drank, and never thirsted more. 'Twas night; the floods were out; it blew A winter hurricane aloof; I heard his voice abroad, and flew To bid him welcome to my roof; I warm'd, I clothed, I cheer'd my guest, Laid him on my own couch to rest; Stript, wounded, beaten, nigh to death, I roused his pulse, brought back his breath, THE AGES OF MAN. YOUTH, fond youth! to thee in life's gay morning, New and wonderful are heaven and earth; Conquers all things; all things yield to love. Time, swift time, from years their motion stealing, Age, old age, in sickness, pain, and sorrow, Creeps with lengthening shadow o'er the scene; Then how longs the weary soul for thee, ASPIRATIONS OF YOUTH. HIGHER, higher will we climb. That our names may live through time In our country's story: Happy, when her welfare calls, Deeper, deeper let us toil In the mines of knowledge- Onward, onward will we press Let us make a heaven of earth. Close and closer then we knit O! they wander wide, who roam Nearer, dearer bands of love THE FALLING LEAF. WERE I a trembling leaf, I should be loath to fall Beside the common way, Weltering in mire, and spurn'd by all, Till trodden down to clay. Nor would I choose to die All on a bed of grass, Where thousands of my kindred lie And idly rot in mass. Nor would I like to spread My thin and wither'd face In hortus siccus, pale and dead, A mummy of my race. No, on the wings of air I know not and I heed not where, A waif of earth and sky! Or flung upon the stream, As through the changes of a dream, Who that hath ever been, Could bear to be no more? Yet who would tread again the scene On, with intense desire, It seems to die, yet like Heaven's fire, THE ADVENTURE OF A STAR. ADDRESSED TO A YOUNG LADY. A STAR Would be a flower; So down from heaven it came, And in a honeysuckle bower Lit up its little flame. There on a bank, beneath the shade, It overlook'd the garden ground, -A landscape stretching ten yards round; O what a change of place From gazing through eternity of space! Gay plants on every side And many an insect on the wing, Full of the spirit of the spring, Flew round and round in endless glee, Now all the flowers were up, and drest Glittering with birth-night splendour, rose ; And polyanthuses display'd The brilliance of their gold brocade : Here hyacinths of heavenly blue Till their loved nightingale, who tarried long, Was sweeter, in the blast of death, Than all the lavish fragrance of the thyme. Amidst this gorgeous train, Our truant star shone forth in vain ; Through whose fine gloom it strove to twinkle, Than the light-spangle in a drop of dew. For aught I know, Or aught indeed that they can show; Now, to return (for we have wander'd far) Save from the hand of lady fair, Pluck'd one and then another, A sister or a brother, From its elastic stalk; Happy, no doubt, for one sharp pang, to die Thus all day long that star's hard lot, At length the sun went down, and then Its faded glory came again, The flowers were laughing in the land of dreams. Our star, in melancholy state, The star, now wiser for its folly, knew One hint the humble bard may send MAKE WAY FOR LIBERTY. On the exploit of Arnold Winkelried at the battle of Sempach, in which the Swiss, fighting for their independ ence, totally defeated the Austrians, in the fourteenth century. "MAKE way for liberty!"-he cried; Made way for liberty, and died! In arms the Austrian phalanx stood, A living wall, a human wood! A wall, where every conscious stone Seem'd to its kindred thousands grown; A rampart all assaults to bear, Till time to dust their frames should wear; A wood like that enchanted grove* In which with fiends Rinaldo strove, Where every silent tree possess'd A spirit prison'd in its breast, Which the first stroke of coming strife Would startle into hideous life, So dense, so still, the Austrians stood, A living wall, a human wood! Impregnable their front appears, All horrent with projected spears, Whose polish'd points before them shine, From flank to flank, one brilliant line, Bright as the breakers' splendours run Along the billows, to the sun. Opposed to these a hovering band Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke See Tasso's Jerusalem Delivered, canto xviii. |