Type of long-suffering power! Even in my gayest hour, Thou 'dst still my tongue, and send my spirit far, To wander in a labyrinth of thought; For thou hast waged with Time unceasing war, And out of pain hast strength and beauty brought. Thou amidst storms and tempests hadst thy birth, Upon these bleak and scantly-sheltering rocks, Nor much save storm and wrath hast known on earth; Yet nobly hast thou bode the fiercest shocks. That Circumstance patient Worth. can pour on But then came autumn, when Thy dry and tattered leaves fell dead; And sadly on the gale Thou drop'dst them one by one Drop'dst them, with a low, sad wail, On the cold, unfeeling stone. Next Winter seized thee in his iron grasp, And shook thy bruised and straining form; Or locked thee in his icicle's cold clasp, And piled upon thy head the shorn cloud's snowy fleece. Wert thou not joyful, in this bitter storm, That the green honors, which erst decked thy head, Sage Autumn's slow decay, had mildly shed? Else, with their weight, they'd given thy ills increase, And dragged thee helpless from thy uptorn bed. Nor 'neath life's ruthless tempests But calmly stand like thee, me, Though vernal hopes in yellow And strong in truth work out my Type of long-suffering Power! Strengthened by every struggle, Still, from thy rocky summit, teach us to war with fate! AWAKING OF THE POETICAL ALL day I heard a humming in my I ears, A buzz of many voices, and a throng Of swarming numbers, passing with a song Measured and stately as the rolling spheres'. saw the sudden light of lifted spears, Slanted at once against some mon ster wrong; And then a fluttering scarf which might belong To some sweet maiden in her morn of years. I felt the chilling damp of sunless glades, Horrid with gloom; anon, the breath of May Was blown around me, and the lulling play Of dripping fountains. lights and shades, Yet the The waving scarfs, the battle's grand parades, Seemed but vague shadows of that wondrous lay. And all things seem a show and mockery Life, and life's actions, noise and vanity; I ask my mournful heart if it can tell If all be truth which I protest to thee: And my heart answers, solemnly, "Tis well." I HAVE been mounted on life's topmost wave, Until my forehead kissed the daz zling cloud; But, ah! my treacherous heart doth ever fail To ratify the sentence of my mind; For when conviction strikes me to the core, I swear I love thee fondlier than before; And were I now all free and unconfined, Loose as the action of the shoreless wind, My slavish heart would sigh for bonds once more. I have been dashed beneath the AH! let me live on memories of old, The precious relics I have set aside From life's poor venture; things that yet abide My ill-paid labor, shining, like pure gold, Amid the dross of cheated hopes whose hold Dropped at the touch of action. Down the smooth past, review When each to each our mutual passion told When love grew frenzy in thy blazing eye, Fear shone heroic, caution quailed before My hot, resistless kisses - when we bore Time, conscience, destiny, down, down for aye, Beneath victorious love, and thou didst cry, "Strike, God! life's cup is running o'er and o'er DIRGE FOR A SOLDIER. CLOSE his eyes; his work is done! Hand of man, or kiss of woman? |