OFT in the stilly night
Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond Memory brings the light Of other days around me: The smiles, the tears,
Of boyhood's years,
The words of love then spoken;
The eyes that shone,
Now dimmed and gone,
The cheerful hearts now broken! Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
When I remember all
The friends so linked together
I've seen around me fall
Like leaves in wintry weather,
I feel like one
Who treads alone
Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, Whose garlands dead, And all but he departed! Thus in the stilly night
Ere slumber's chain has bound me,
Sad Memory brings the light
Of other days around me.
THOSE evening bells! those evening bells! How many a tale their music tells
Of youth, and home, and that sweet time
When last I heard their soothing chime!
Those joyous hours are passed away;
And many a heart that then was gay
Within the tomb now darkly dwells,
And hears no more those evening bells.
And so 't will be when I am gone-
That tuneful peal will still ring on;
While other bards shall walk these dells,
And sing your praise, sweet evening bells.
THOU art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see; Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from Thee.
Where'er we turn, Thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!
When day, with farewell beam, delays
Among the op'ning clouds of even,
And we can almost think we gaze
Through golden vistas into heavenThose hues that make the sun's decline So soft, so radiant, Lord! are Thine.
When night, with wings of starry gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark, beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with unnumber'd eyes-
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord! are Thine.
When youthful spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh;
And every flower the summer wreathes
Is born beneath that kindling eye.
Where'er we turn, Thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are Thine!
THE bird let loose in Eastern skies,
When hast'ning fondly home,
Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies
Where idle warblers roam.
But high she shoots through air and light,
Above all low delay,
Where nothing earthly bounds her flight,
Nor shadow dims her way.
So grant me, God, from every care
And stain of passion free,
Aloft, through Virtue's purer air,
To hold my course to Thee!
No sin to cloud, no lure to stay
My soul, as home she springs ;-
Thy sunshine on her joyful way,
Thy freedom in her wings!
THIS WORLD IS ALL A FLEETING SHOW.
THIS world is all a fleeting show,
For man's illusion given;
The smiles of joy, the tears of woe,
Deceitful shine, deceitful flow-
There's nothing true but heaven!
And false the light on glory's plume,
As fading hues of even!
And love and hope and beauty's bloom
Are blossoms gather'd for the tomb-
There's nothing bright but heaven!
Poor wand'rers of a stormy day!
From wave to wave we're driven,
And fancy's flash and reason's ray
Serve but to light the troubled way-
There's nothing calm but heaven!
O THOU WHO DRY'ST THE MOURNER'S TEAR.
O THOU who dry'st the mourner's tear, How dark this world would be,
THE turf shall be my fragrant shrine;
My temple, Lord! that arch of thine;
My censer's breath the mountain airs,
And silent thoughts my only prayers.
My choir shall be the moonlight waves,
When murm'ring homeward to their caves,
Or when the stillness of the sea,
Even more than music, breathes of Thee!
I'll seek by day some glade unknown,
All light and silence, like Thy throne;
And the pale stars shall be, at night,
The only eyes that watch my rite.
Thy heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look, Shall be my pure and shining book, Where I shall read, in words of flame, The glories of thy wondrous name.
I'll read thy anger in the rack
That clouds a while the day-beam's track;
Thy mercy in the azure hue
Of sunny brightness breaking through.
There's nothing bright, above, below,
From flowers that bloom to stars that glow,
But in its light my soul can see
Some features of Thy Deity;
There's nothing dark, below, above,
But in its gloom I trace Thy love,
And meekly wait that moment when
Thy touch shall turn all bright again!
SOUND the loud timbrel o'er Egypt's dark sea! Jehovah has triumph'd-His people are free!
POEMS WRITTEN IN AMERICA.
A CANADIAN BOAT-SONG. WRITTEN ON THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.
FAINTLY as tolls the evening chime,
Our voices keep tune and our oars keep time.
Soon as the woods on shore look dim,
We'll sing at St. Ann's our parting hymn.
Row, brothers, row, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
Why should we yet our sail unfurl?
There is not a breath the blue wave to curl!
But when the wind blows off the shore,
Oh! sweetly we'll rest our weary oar.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
Utawa's tide! this trembling moon
Shall see us float over thy surges soon.
Saint of this green isle! hear our prayers,
Oh! grant us cool heavens and favoring airs.
Blow, breezes, blow, the stream runs fast,
The rapids are near, and the daylight's past!
THE LAKE OF THE DISMAL SWAMP.
WRITTEN AT NORFOLK, IN VIRGINIA. "They tell of a young man who lost his mind upon the death of a girl he loved, and who, suddenly disappearing from his friends, was never afterward heard of. As he had frequently said in his ravings, that the girl was not dead, but gone to the Dismal Swamp, it is supposed he had wandered into that dreary wilderness, and had died of hunger, or been lost in some of its dreadful morasses."
"THEY made her a grave too cold and damp
For a soul so warm and true;
And she's gone to the Lake of the Dismal
Swamp,
Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,
She paddles her white canoe,
"And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,
And her paddle I soon shall hear; Long and loving our life shall be, And I'll hide the maid in a cypress-tree, When the footstep of death is near!
Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds-
His path was rugged and sore,
Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,
Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,
And man never trod before!
And when on the earth he sunk to sleep, If slumber his eyelids knew,
He lay where the deadly vine doth weep Its venomous tear and nightly steep
The flesh with blistering dew!
And near him the she-wolf stirr'd the brake, And the copper-snake breathed in his ear, Till he starting cried, from his dream awake, "Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,
And the white canoe of my dear?"
He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright
Quick over its surface play'd-
"Welcome," he said, "my dear one's light!"
And the dim shore echoed for many a night
The name of the death-cold maid!
Till he hollow'd a boat of the birchen bark, Which carried him off from shore;
Far he follow'd the meteor spark,
The wind was high and the clouds were dark, And the boat return'd no more.
But oft, from the Indian hunter's camp, This lover and maid so true
Are seen at the hour of midnight damp, To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp, And paddle their white canoe!
WRITTEN ON LEAVING PHILADELPHIA,
ALONE by the Schuylkill a wanderer roved, And bright were its flowery banks to his eye!
But far, very far were the friends that he loved, And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh!
O Nature! though blessed and bright are thy
O'er the brow of creation enchantingly thrown, Yet faint are they all to the lustre that plays In a smile from the heart that is dearly our own!
Nor long did the soul of the stranger remain Unblest by the smile he had languish'd to meet; Though scarce did he hope it would soothe him again,
Till the threshold of home had been kiss'd by his feet!
But the lays of his boyhood had stolen to their ear,
And they loved what they knew of so humble a name,
And they told him, with flattery welcome and dear, That they found in his heart something sweeter than fame.
Nor did woman- -O woman! whose form and whose soul
Are the spell and the light of each path we
Whether sunn'd in the tropics or chill'd at the pole,
If woman be there, there is happiness too!
Nor did she her enamouring magic deny,
That magic his heart had relinquish'd so long. Like eyes he had loved was her eloquent eye, Like them did it soften and weep at his song!
Oh! blest be the tear, and in memory oft
May its sparkle be shed o'er his wandering dream!
Oh! blest be that eye, and may passion as soft, As free from a pang, ever mellow its beam!
The stranger is gone-but he will not forget, When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,
To tell, with a sigh, what endearments he met, As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!
WRITTEN AT THE COHOES, OR FALL OF THE MOHAWK RIVER.
FROM rise of morn till set of sun
I've seen the mighty Mohawk run,
And as I mark'd the woods of pine
Along his mirror darkly shine,
Like tall and gloomy forms that pass
Before the wizard's midnight glass;
And as I view'd the hurrying pace
With which he ran his turbid race,
Rushing, alike untired and wild,
Through shades that frown'd and flowers that smil'd,
Flying by every green recess
That woo'd him to its calm caress,
Yet, sometimes turning with the wind,
As if to leave one look behind!
Oh! I have thought, and thinking sigh'd-
How like to thee, thou heartless tide!
May be the lot, the life of him,
Who roams along thy water's brim!
Through what alternate shades of woe
And flowers of joy my path may go;
How many an humble, still retreat
May rise to court my weary feet,
While still pursuing, still unblest,
I wander on, nor dare to rest!
But, urgent as the doom that calls
Thy water to its destined falls,
I see the world's bewildering force
Hurry my heart's devoted course,
From lapse to lapse, till life be done,
And the lost current cease to run!
May heaven's forgiving rainbow shine
Upon the mist that circles me,
As soft, as now it hangs o'er thee!
WRITTEN ON PASSING DEAD-MAN'S ISL
IN THE GULF OF ST. LAWRENCE, LATE IN THE
EVENING, SEPTEMBER, 1804.
SEE you, beneath yon cloud so dark,
Fast gliding along, a gloomy bark?
Her sails are full, though the wind is still,
And there blows not a breath her sails to fill!
Oh! what doth that vessel of darkness bear?
The silent calm of the grave is there,
Save now and again a death-knell rung,
And the flap of the sails, with night-fog hung!
There lieth a wreck on the dismal shore
Of cold and pitiless Labrador;
Where, under the moon, upon mounts of frost,
Full many a mariner's bones are tost!
Yon shadowy bark hath been to that wreck,
And the dim blue fire that lights her deck
Doth play on as pale and livid a crew
As ever yet drank the church-yard dew!
To Dead-Man's Isle, in the eye of the blast,
To Dead-Man's Isle, she speeds her fast;
By skeleton shapes her sails are furl'd,
And the hand that steers is not of this world!
Oh! hurry thee on-oh! hurry thee on,
Thou terrible bark! ere the night be gone,
Nor let morning look on so foul a sight
As would blanch for ever her rosy light!
SONG OF THE EVIL SPIRIT OF THE
WOODS.
Now the vapor hot and damp,
Shed by day's expiring lamp,
Through the misty ether spreads
Every ill the white man dreads;
Fiery fever's thirsty thrill,
Fitful ague's shivering chill!
Hark! I hear the traveller's song,
As he winds the woods along!
Christian! 'tis the song of fear;
Wolves are round thee, night is near,
And the wild thou dar'st to roam-
Oh! 'twas once the Indian's home!
Hither, sprites who love to harm,
Whereso'er you work your charm,
By the creeks, or by the brakes,
Where the pale witch feeds her snakes,
And the cayman loves to creep,
Torpid, to his wintry sleep:
Where the bird of carrion flits,
And the shuddering murderer sits,
Lone beneath a roof of blood,
While upon his poison'd food,
From the corpse of him he slew
Drops the chill and gory dew!
Hither bend you, turn you hither,
Eyes that blast and wings that wither!
Cross the wandering Christian's way?
Lead him, ere the glimpse of day,
Many a mile of maddening error,
Through the maze of night and terror,
Till the morn behold him lying
O'er the damp earth, pale and dying!
Mock him, when his eager sight
Seeks the cordial cottage-light;
Gleam then, like the lightning-bug,
Tempt him to the den that's dug
For the foul and famish'd brood
Of the she-wolf, gaunt for blood!
Or, unto the dangerous pass
O'er the deep and dark morass,
Where the trembling Indian brings
Belts of porcelain, pipes, and rings,
Tributes to be hung in air
To the fiend presiding there!
Then, when night's long labor past,
Wilder'd, faint, he falls at last,
Sinking where the causeway's edge
Moulders in the slimy sedge,
There let every noxious thing
Trail its filth and fix its sting,
Let the bull-toad taint him over,
Round him let mosquitoes hover,
In his ears and eyeballs tingling,
With his blood their poison mingling,
Till, beneath the solar fires,
Rankling all, the wretch expires!
THE STEERSMAN'S SONG. WRITTEN ABOARD THE BOSTON FRIGATE, 28TH
WHEN freshly blows the northern gale,
And under courses snug we fly;
When lighter breezes swell the sail,
And royals proudly sweep the sky;
'Longside the wheel, unwearied still
I stand, and as my watchful eye
Doth mark the needle's faithful thrill,
I think of her I love, and cry,
Port, my boy! port.
When calms delay, or breezes blow
Right from the point we wish to steer;
When by the wind close-haul'd we go,
And strive in vain the port to near;
I think 'tis thus the fates defer
My bliss with one that's far away,
And while remembrance springs to her,
I watch the sails, and sighing say,
Thus, my boy! thus.
But see, the wind draws kindly aft,
All hands are up the yards to square, And now the floating stu'n-sails waft Our stately ship through waves and air. Oh! then I think that yet for me
Some breeze of fortune thus may spring, Some breeze to waft me, love, to thee! And in that hope I smiling sing, Steady, boy! so.
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