Oh, what is like a parent's love?
What heart like his will feel,
When sorrow's waves are raging round,
And cares the thoughts congeal?
Would he not die his child to save?
Would not his blood be shed,
That yet one darling might remain
To soothe his dying bed?
Oh, what is like a parent's care
To guard the youthful mind?
Oh, what is like a parent's prayer,
Unbounded grace to find?
Ah, yes! my father is a friend
I ever must revere;
And, if I could but cease to love,
- His virtues I would fear.
THE lawns were dry in Euston park;
(Here truth inspires my tale)—
The lonely footpath, still and dark,
Led over hill and dale.
* This ballad is founded on a fact. The circumstance occurred perhaps long before I was born; but is still related by my mother and some of the oldest inhabitants in that part of the country.--R. B.
Benighted was an ancient dame,
And fearful haste she made
To gain the vale of Fakenham,
And hail its willow shade.
Her footsteps knew no idle stops,
But follow'd faster still;
And echo'd to the darksome copse
That whisper'd on the hill;
Where clam'rous rooks, yet scarcely hush'd,
Bespoke a peopled shade;
And many a wing the foliage brush'd,
And hovering circuits made.
The dappled herd of grazing deer,
That sought the shades by day,
Now started from her path with fear,
And gave the stranger way.
Darker it grew; and darker fears
Came o'er her troubled mind;
When now, a short quick step she hears
Come patting close behind.
She turn'd; it stopp'd!-nought could she see Upon the gloomy plain !
But, as she strove the sprite to flee,
She heard the same again.
Now terror seiz'd her quaking frame:
For, where the path was bare,
The trotting ghost kept on the same!-
She mutter'd many a prayer.
Yet once again, amidst her fright,
She tried what sight could do;
When, through the cheating glooms of night,
A MONSTER stood in view.
Regardless of whate'er she felt,
It follow'd down the plain!
She own'd her sins, and down she knelt,
And said her prayers again.
Then on she sped: and hope grew strong,
The white park-gate in view;
Which, pushing hard, so long it swung
That ghost and all pass'd through.
Loud fell the gate against the post!
Her heart-strings like to crack:
For much she feared the grisly ghost
Would leap upon her back.
Still on, pat, pat, the goblin went,
As it had done before:
Her strength and resolution spent,
She fainted at the door.
Out came her husband, much surprised;
Out came her daughter dear:
Good-natured souls! all unadvis'd
Of what they had to fear.
The candle's gleam pierced through the night
Some short space o'er the green;
And there the little trotting sprite
Distinctly might be seen.
An ass's foal had lost its dam
Within the spacious park;
And, simple as the playful lamb,
Had follow'd in the dark.
No goblin he; no imp of sin :
No crimes had ever known;
They took the shaggy stranger in,
And rear'd him as their own.
His little hoofs would rattle round
Upon the cottage floor:
The matron learn'd to love the sound
That frightened her before.
A favourite the ghost became ;
And 'twas his fate to thrive,
And long he liv'd, and spread his fame,
And kept the joke alive.
For many a laugh went through the vale;
And some conviction too:-
Each thought some other goblin tale
Perhaps was just as true.
TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky
When storms prepare to part,
I ask not proud philosophy
To teach me what thou art.
Still seem as to my childhood's sight,
A midway station given
For happy spirits to alight
Betwixt the earth and heaven.
Can all that optics teach unfold
Thy form to please me so,
As when I dreamed of gems and gold
Hid in thy radiant bow?
Where Science from creation's face
Enchantment's veil undraws,
What lovely visions yield their place
To cold material laws!
And yet, fair bow, no fabling dreams,
But words of the Most High,
Have told me why thy robe of beams
Was woven in the sky.
When o'er the green, undeluged earth,
Heaven's covenant thou did'st shine,
How came the world's gray fathers forth
To watch thy sacred sign!
And when its yellow lustre smiled
O'er mountains yet untrod,
Each mother held aloft her child
To bless the bow of God.
Methinks, thy jubilee to keep,
The first-made anthem rang
On earth, delivered from the deep,
And the first poet sang.
|