ALONE I walk'd the ocean strand;
A pearly shell was in my hand :
I stoop'd and wrote upon the sand
My name the year-the day.
As onward from the spot I pass'd,
One lingering look behind I cast:
A wave came rolling high and fast,
And wash'd my lines away.
And so, methought, 'twill shortly be
With every mark on earth from me;
A wave of dark oblivion's sea
Will sweep across the place,
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of time, and been to be no more,
Of me my day-the name I bore,
To leave nor track nor trace.
And yet, with Him who counts the sands,
And holds the waters in his hands,
I know the lasting record stands,
Inscribed against my name,
Of all this mortal part has wrought;
Of all this thinking soul has thought;
And from these fleeting moments caught
For glory, or for shame.
WE will not deplore them, the days that are past;
The gloom of misfortune is over them cast;
They are lengthen'd by sorrow and sullied by care;
Their griefs were too many, their joys were too rare;
Yet, now that their shadows are on us no more,
Let us welcome the prospect that brightens before!
We have cherish'd fair hopes, we have plotted brave schemes,
We have lived till we find them illusive as dreams;
Wealth has melted like snow that is grasp'd in the hand,
And the steps we have climb'd have departed like sand;
Yet shall we despond while of health unbereft,
And honour, bright honour, and freedom are left?
Q! shall we despond, while the pages of time
Yet open before us their records sublime!
While, ennobled by treasures more precious than gold,
We can walk with the martyrs and heroes of old;
While humanity whispers such truths in the ear,
As it softens the heart like sweet music to hear?
O! shall we despond while, with visions still free,
We can gaze on the sky, and the earth, and the sea;
While the sunshine can waken a burst of delight,
And the stars are a joy and a glory by night:
While each harmony, running through nature, can raise
In our spirits the impulse of gladness and praise?
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.
O! let us no longer then vainly lament
Over scenes that are faded and days that are spent:
But, by faith unforsaken, unawed by mischance,
On hope's waving banner still fix'd be our glance;
And, should fortune prove cruel and false to the last,
Let us look to the future and not to the past!
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.
A voice within us speaks the startling word,
"Man, thou shalt never die !" Celestial voices
Hymn it around our souls: according harps,
By angel fingers touch'd when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality!
Thick, clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,
The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas,
Join in this solemn, universal song.
-O, listen, ye, our spirits! drink it in
From all the air! "Tis in the gentle moonlight;
'Tis floating in day's setting glories; night,
Wrapp'd in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears;
Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,
As one vast, mystic instrument, are touch'd
By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee :
-The dying hear it; and as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.
BY F. G. HALLECK.
HOME of the Percy's highborn race,
Home of their beautiful and brave,
Alike their birth and burial place,
Their cradle, and their grave!
Still sternly o'er the castle gate
Their house's Lion stands in state,
As in his proud departed hours;
And warriors frown in stone on high,
And feudal banners "flout the sky"
Above his princely towers.
A gentle hill its side inclines,
Lovely in England's fadeless green, To meet the quiet stream which winds Through this romantic scene
As silently and sweetly still,
As when, at evening, on that hill,
While summer's wind blew soft and low,
Seated by gallant Hotspur's side,
His Katharine was a happy bride,
A thousand years ago.
Gaze on the Abbey's ruin'd pile:
Does not the succouring Ivy, keeping Her watch around it seem to smile,
As o'er a loved one sleeping?
One solitary turret gray
Still tells, in melancholy glory,
The legend of the Cheviot day,
The Percy's proudest border story.
That day its roof was triumph's arch;
Then rang, from aisle to pictured dome,
The light step of the soldier's march,
The music of the trump and drum ;
And babe, and sire, the old, the young,
And the monk's hymn, and minstrel's song,
And woman's pure kiss, sweet and long,
Welcomed her warrior home,
Wild roses by the Abbey towers
Are gay in their young bud and bloom: They were born of a race of funeral flowers That garlanded in long-gone hours,
A Templar's knightly tomb.
He died, the sword in his mailed hand,
On the holiest spot of the Blessed Land,
Where the Cross was damp'd with his dying breath; When blood ran free as festal wine,
And the sainted air of Palestine
Was thick with the darts of death.
Wise with the lore of centuries,
What tales, if there be "tongues in trees,"
Those giant oaks could tell,
Of beings born and buried here;
Tales of the peasant and the peer,
Tales of the bridal and the bier,
The welcome and farewell,
Since on their boughs the startled bird
First, in her twilight slumbers, heard
The Norman's curfew-bell.
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