SONG.

Оn say not that my heart is cold
To aught that once could warm it—
That nature's form, so dear of old,

No more has power to charm it;
Or that the ungenerous world can chill
One glow of fond emotion
For those who made it dearer still,
And shared my wild devotion.

Still oft those solemn scenes I view
In rapt and dreamy sadness-
Oft look on those who loved them too,
With fancy's idle gladness;
Again I longed to view the light

In nature's features glowing,
Again to tread the mountain's height,
And taste the soul's o'erflowing.

Stern duty rose, and, frowning, flung
His leaden chain around me;
With iron look and sullen tongue

He muttered as he bound me:

"The mountain breeze, the boundless

heaven,

Unfit for toil the creature;

These for the free alone are given—
But what have slaves with nature?"
CHARLES WOLFE.

ODE TO DUTY.

STERN daughter of the voice of God!
O duty! if that name thou love
Who art a light to guide, a rod

To check the erring, and reprove—
Thou, who art victory and law

When empty terrors overawe;

From vain temptations dost set free,

And calm'st the weary strife of frail humanity!

There are who ask not if thine eye
Be on them; who, in love and truth,
Where no misgiving is, rely
Upon the genial sense of youth:
Glad hearts! without reproach or blot,
Who do thy work, and know it not;

Long may the kindly impulse last!

695

But thou, if they should totter, teach them to stand fast!

Serene will be our days and bright,

And happy will our nature be,
When love is an unerring light,
And joy its own security.

And they a blissful course may hold
Even now, who, not unwisely bold,
Live in the spirit of this creed;

Yot find that other strength, according to their need.

I, loving freedom, and untried,
No sport of every random gust,
Yet being to myself a guide,
Too blindly have reposed my trust;
And oft, when in my heart was heard
Thy timely mandate, I deferred

The task, in smoother walks to stray;
But thee I now would serve more strictly,
if I may.

Through no disturbance of my soul,
Or strong compunction in me wrought,
I supplicate for thy control,

But in the quietness of thought;
Me this unchartered freedom tires;
I feel the weight of chance desires,
My hopes no more must change their name,
I long for a repose that ever is the same.

Stern lawgiver! yet thou dost wear
The Godhead's most benignant grace;
Nor know we any thing so fair
As is the smile upon thy face;
Flowers laugh before thee on their beds,
And fragrance in thy footing treads;
Thou dost preserve the stars from wrong;
And the most ancient heavens, through
thee, are fresh and strong.

To humbler functions, awful power!

I call thee: I myself commend
Unto thy guidance from this hour;
Oh, let my weakness have an end!
Give unto me, made lowly wis0,
The spirit of self-sacrifice;

The confidence of reason give;

And in the light of truth thy bondman let me live!

WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Nature wears the color of the spirit;

Sweetly to her worshipper she sings; All the glow, the grace she doth inherit, Round her trusting child she fondly flings HARRIET WINSLOW.

LOSSES.

UPON the white sea-sand

There sat a pilgrim band,

Telling the losses that their lives had known; While evening waned away

From breezy cliff and bay,

And the strong tides went out with weary

moan.

One spake, with quivering lip,
Of a fair freighted ship,

With all his household to the deep gone down;
But one had wilder woe-

For a fair face, long ago

Lost in the darker depths of a great town.

There were who mourned their youth With a most loving ruth, For its brave hopes and memories ever green; And one upon the west

Turned an eye that would not rest, For far-off hills whereon its joy had been.

Some talked of vanished gold,
Some of proud honors told,
Some spake of friends that were their trust
no more;

And one of a green grave
Beside a foreign wave,

That made him sit so lonely on the shore.

But when their tales were done,
There spake among them one,

A stranger, seeming from all sorrow free:
"Sad losses have ye met,

But mine is heavier yet;

For a believing heart hath gone from me."

"Alas!" these pilgrims said,
"For the living and the dead-

rovest,

Sighing that they art not thine alone, Not those fair fields, but thyself thou lovest, And their beauty, and thy wealth are gone.

cross,

For the wrecks of land.
d and sea!

But, however it came to thee,
Thine, stranger, is life's last and heaviest loss."

FRANCES BROWN.

When all our fathers worshipped stocks

and stones,

Forget not! in thy book record their groans Who were thy sheep, and in their ancient fold

Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that rolled

Mother with infant down the rocks. Their

moans

The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To heaven. Their martyred blood and ashes sow

O'er all th' Italian fields, where still doth

sway

The triple tyrant; that from these may grow

A hundred fold, who, having learned thy way,

Early may fly the Babylonian woe..

ON HIS BLINDNESS.

WHEN I consider how my light is spent Ere half my days, in this dark world and wide,

And that one talent which is death to hide

Lodged with me useless, though my soul more bent

To serve therewith my maker, and present My true account, lest he returning chide— "Doth God exact day-labor, light denied?"

I fondly ask; but patience, to prevent That murmur, soon replies: "God doth not need

Either man's work, or his own gifts; who best

Bear his mild yoke, they serve him best; his state

Is kingly; thousands at his bidding speed, And post o'er land and ocean without

rest;

They also serve who only stand and wait."

JOHN MILTON.

Oh! the troubadours of old! with their gentle minstrelsie

Of hope and joy, or deep despair, whiche'er their lot might be—

For years they served their ladye-love ere they their passions told

people praise!

True, they wanted all the luxuries that grace

our modern days:

Bare floors were strewed with rushes-the walls let in the cold;

Oh! how they must have shivered in those pleasant days of old!

troubadours of old!

Oh! those blessed times of old with their chivalry and state;

I love to read their chronicles, which such brave deeds relate;

I love to sing their ancient rhymes, to hear their legends told—