Or, if from his retreat he dared,
His flaming home before him glared,
The groans of dying friends he heard,
Or saw, perhaps, the blade prepared
To cut a parent's breath.
But now, the noise of war was o'er,
Or, scarcely heard its distant roar,
And flames that sweeped the vale before,
Were sunk, and pained the eye no more,
Nor groan awaked the gloom.
'Twas drearest horror's deepest shade,
In all its darkest forms arrayed,
Where Nature seemed in ruin laid
Upon the pile that War had made,
In silence like the tomb.
To paint the form is easy, but the mind
Is hard in thee this rule revers'd we find;
For visible throughout the hideous whole
Nature has stamp'd thy crookedness of soul;
But that foul form, where no two parts agree,
Who can delineate, while he loathes to see?
SWEET is the balmy breath of Spring,
When butterflies are on the wing;
When songsters warble in the trees,
And health is wafted on the breeze;
Sweet are the flowers that ope at morn,
The violet sweet beneath the thorn;
Sweet is the music of the
grove,
But sweeter far the maid I love!
The rose that blushes on her cheek,
The lily white that paints her neck,
Outvie the flowers that Flora yields,
To grace in vernal pride the fields;
The perfume of her honied breath,
Is sweeter than the scented heath;
Than spicy aromatic grove,
Far sweeter is the maid I love!
No tempests in her bosom rave,
Calm as the stilly sleeping wave;
As soft and gentle as the gale,
That bids the vernal blossoms hail;
The roseate hues that Summer grace,
Are nought compared to Laura's face;
Ye blushing flowers! ye vainly strove,
For sweeter far's the maid I love!
FROM THE FRENCH OF THE CHEVALIER PARNY.
ME with caresses still you cheat;
Promises you still repeat;
And Zephyr wafts, in wanton play,
Your faithless promises away!
"To-morrow," every day you cry:
I haste ere dawn illumes the sky;
I haste, but find my hopes betray'd,
For, flying constant to your aid,
Bashful Fear, provoking sprite!
Puts the sportive loves to flight.
Yet, when deluded I complain,
"To-morrow" you exclaim again.
Laura! thank indulgent heaven,
Who so long the power has given,
In
your face and form each day
Some new-born beauty to display.
Yet hope not that such matchless grace
Will always deck your form and face;
For, onward as he speeds, your bloom
TIME will touch with withering plume.
Then, O! of coy delay beware!
Quickly grant the promis'd blessing:
To-morrow you may
be less fair,
And I, perhaps, not quite so pressing.
Addressed to the Countess of Charleville, on her Institution for Educating the Children of the Poor at Tullamore, King's County, Ireland.
TRACING the Ban's romantic side,
I listen'd to its solemn song,
As down the vale, in winding pride,
Profound and smooth it swept along.
But oh! how chang'd its solemn song
When heard from Goward's * lofty brow,
Borne on the varying breeze along,
Now swelling soft, now sinking low.
Is there a magic in the breeze?
Or do the wing'd Æolian train
Aloft the wat❜ry descant seize,
And blend it with an heav'nly strain?
But Fancy hears a sweeter strain,
O'er many a vale and mountain hoar,
Where, nurs'd for heav'n, an infant train
Their anthems tune on Clodio's + shore.
There, like the genial power that brings
The stagnant waters from their cell,
And bids the gentle zephyr's wings
Wave, as they warble down the dell,
* An hill near the river Ban.
+ Clodio, a river near Tullamore.
Aspasia calls; the slumbering mind
By meagre want, in durance deep,
And Sloth's narcotic hand confined,
To break its dire and deadly sleep.
O long may Clodio's sacred stream
Before that blest asylum glide,
And more than mortals hail the beam
That more than light and life supplied.
Hark! to another strain afar!
In boundless space it runs around: Hark! how it rolls from star to star,
And heaven's wide dome returns the sound.
There still young denizens of heaven,
From earth ascending as they sing,
Like soaring larks in Summer even,
A welcome aid of music bring.
Still wafted on the noiseless tide
Of time, they come and seek their seat;
Still as each freight of souls supplied
New voices to that pæan sweet.
When Time was born the strain begun,
And love and mercy was the theme;
And it shall last, when yonder sun
No more shall guide his fiery team.
And still the chorus shall increase
By levied songsters from below;
Till heaven shall view its full degrees,
And time and tide shall cease to flow.
|