THE POET'S DEATHBED. BY JOHN MALCOLM. Oh, alas, and alas! Green grows the grass! Like the waves we come, like the winds we pass. YE tell me 'tis the opening hour;-then ere the day be flown The casement ope, that I may see my last of suns go down. With beams as beautiful he'll rise to gladden earth again, And wake the world with life and light,-but shine for me in vain. Yes-of the azure sky above, and the green earth below, I yet would take a last farewell to cheer me as I go; And I will deem the light that glows along the verge of even', And plays upon my faded cheek, the smile of opening heaven. And let my fainting heart inhale sweet Nature's fragrant breath, That wafts a message from the bowers to soothe the bed of death; That bears a whisper from the woods, a farewell from the spring, A tale of open leaf and bud-while I am withering. And let me hear the small birds sing among the garden bowers Their evening hymn, that wont to bless my solitary hours: 190 THE POET'S DEATH BED. That choral anthem, warbled wild upon the leafy spray, Will glad this ear, that to the strain must soon be deaf for aye. And blame me not, that, called away unto a land of bliss, I fondly linger on the shore of such a world as this; And better love, than ought I know of bright immortal spheres, This earth, so lovely in her woe, so beautiful in tears. SONG. WE break the glass, whose sacred wine But still the old impassioned ways THE CORAL GROVE. BY JAMES PERCIVAL. DEEP in the wave is a coral grove, Where the purple mullet and gold-fish rove, But in bright and changeful beauty shine Their boughs where the tides and billows flow; For the winds and waves are absent there, The sea-flag streams through the silent water, The fan-coral sweeps through the clear deep sea; The purple mullet and gold-fish rove, Through the bending twigs of the Coral Grove. MY MOTHER'S GRAVE. My mother's grave, my mother's grave! Oh! dreamless is her slumber there, And drowsily the banners wave O'er her that was so chaste and fair Yea! love is dead, and memory faded! But when the dew is on the brake, And silence sleeps on earth and sea, And mourners weep, and ghosts awake, Oh! then she cometh back to me, In her cold beauty darkly shaded ! I cannot guess her face or form ; To give me back each buried grace And that we meet, and that we part; And that I drink within mine ear, And that I clasp around my heart, Her sweet, still voice, and soft caresses! Not in the waking thought by day, Of her who was my cradle's light! ON A PICTURE. How may this little tablet feign the features of a face, Which o'er-informs with loveliness its proper share of space; Or human hands on ivory enable us to see The charms, that all must wonder at, thou work of gods, in thee. But yet, methinks, that sunny smile familiar stories tells, And I should know those placid eyes, two shaded crystal wells; Nor can my soul, the limner's art attesting with a sigh, Forget the blood that decked thy cheek, as rosy clouds the sky. They could not semble what thou art, more excellent than fair, As soft as sleep or pity is, and pure as mountain air ; But here are common, earthly hues, to such an aspect wrought, That none, save thine, can seem so like the beautiful of thought. The song I sing, thy likeness like, is painful mimicry Of something better, which is now a memory to me, Who have upon life's frozen sea just reached the icy spot, Where men's magnetic feelings show their guiding task forgot. The sportive hopes that used to chase their shifting shadows on, Like children playing in the sun, are gone for ever |