Графични страници
PDF файл
ePub

'I AM PLEASED, AND YET I'M SAD.'

WHEN twilight steals along the ground,
And all the bells are ringing round,

One, two, three, four and five,

I at my study-window sit,

And, wrapp'd in many a musing fit,
To bliss am all alive.

But though impressions calm and sweet
Thrill round my heart a holy heat,
And I am inly glad,

The tear-drop stands in either eye,
And yet I cannot tell thee why,

I'm pleased, and yet I'm sad.

The silvery rack that flies away
Like mortal life or pleasure's ray,
Does that disturb my breast?
Nay, what have I, a studious man,
To do with life's unstable plan,
Or pleasure's fading vest?

Is it that here I must not stop,
But o'er yon blue hill's woody top
Must bend my lonely way?

No, surely no! for give but me
My own fire-side, and I shall be
At home where'er I stray.

Then is it that yon steeple there,
With music sweet shall fill the air,

When thou no more canst hear?
Oh, no! oh, no! for then forgiven
I shall be with my God in heaven,
Releas'd from every fear.

Then whence it is I cannot tell,
But there is some mysterious spell

That holds me when I'm glad;
And so the tear-drop fills my eye,
When yet in truth I know not why,
Or wherefore I am sad.

SOLITUDE.

Ir is not that my lot is low,
That bids this silent tear to flow:
It is not grief that bids me moan,
It is that I am all alone.

In woods and glens I love to roam,
When the tired hedger hies him home;
Or by the woodland pool to rest,
When pale the star looks on its breast.
Yet when the silent evening sighs,
With hallow'd airs and symphonies,
My spirit takes another tone,
And sighs that it is all alone.

The autumn leaf is sear and dead,
It floats upon the water's bed;
I would not be a leaf, to die
Without recording sorrow's sigh!

The woods and winds with sudden wail,
Tell all the same unvaried tale;

I've none to smile when I am free,
And when I sigh, to sigh with me.

Yet in my dreams a form I view,
That thinks on me, and loves me too;
I start, and when the vision's flown,

[blocks in formation]

IF far from me the Fates remove
Domestic peace, connubial love,
The prattling ring, the social cheer,
Affection's voice, affection's tear,
Ye sterner powers, tha bind the heart,
To me your iron aid impart!

O teach me, when the nights are chill,
And my fire-side is lone and still;
When to the blaze that crackles near,
I turn a tired and pensive ear,
And Nature conquering bids me sigh,
For love's soft accents whispering nigh;
O teach me, on that heavenly road,
That leads to Truth's occult abode,
To wrap my soul in dreams divine,
Till earth and care no more be mine.
Let bless'd Philosophy impart
Her soothing measures to my heart;
And while with Plato's ravish'd ears
I list the music of the spheres,
Or on the mystic symbols pore,
That hide the Chald's sublimer lore,
I shall not brood on summers gone,
Nor think that I am all alone.

FANNY! upon thy breast I may not lie!

Fanny! thou dost not hear me when I speak!
Where art thou, love?-Around I turn my eye,
And as I turn, the tear is on my cheek.
Was it a dream? or did my love behold

Indeed my lonely couch?-Methought the breath
Fann'd not her bloodless lip; her eye was cold
And hollow, and the livery of death.

Invested her pale forehead.-Sainted maid!

My thoughts oft rest with thee in thy cold grave, Through the long wintry night, when wind and wave Rock the dark house where thy poor head is laid. Yet, hush! my fond heart, hush! there is a shore Of better promise; and I know at last,

When the long sabbath of the tomb is past, We two shall meet in Christ-to part no more.

FRAGMENTS.

These Fragments are Henry's latest composition; and were, for the most part, written upon the back of his mathematical papers, during the few moments of the last year of his life, in which he suffered himself to follow the impulse of his genius.

'SAW'ST thou that light?' exclaim'd the youth, and paus'd:

Through yon dark firs it glanced, and on the stream That skirts the woods it for a moment play'd.

Again, more light it gleam'd;-or does some sprite
Delude mine eyes with shapes of wood and streams,
And lamp, far-beaming through the thicket's gloom,
As from some bosom'd cabin, where the voice
Of revelry, or thrifty watchfulness,

Keeps in the lights at this unwonted hour?

No sprite deludes mine eyes,—the beam now glows With steady lustre.-Can it be the moon,

Who, hidden long by the invidious veil

That blots the heavens, now sets behind the woods?" 'No moon to-night has look'd upon the sea

[ocr errors]

Of clouds beneath her,' answer'd Rudiger,

She has been sleeping with Endymion.'

THE pious man,

In this bad world, when mists and couchant storms
Hide Heaven's fine circlet, springs aloft in faith'
Above the clouds that threat him, to the fields
Of ether, where the day is never veil'd
With intervening vapours; and looks down
Serene upon the troublous sea, that hides

The earth's fair breast, that sea whose nether face
To grovelling mortals frowns and darkness all;
But on whose billowy back, from man conceal'd,
The glaring sunbeam plays.

Lo! on the eastern summit, clad in gray,
Morn, like a horseman girt for travel comes,
And from his tower of mist,

Night's watchman hurries down.

THERE was a little bird

upon

that pile;

It perch'd upon a ruin'd pinnacle,

And made sweet melody.

The song was soft, yet cheerful, and most clear, For other note none swell'd the air but his.

It seem'd as if the little chorister,

Sole tenant of the melancholy pile,

Were a lone hermit, outcast from his kind,
Yet withal cheerful.-I have heard the note
Echoing so lonely o'er the aisle forlorn,
Much musing-

O PALE art thou, my lamp, and faint
Thy melancholy ray,

When the still night's unclouded saint
Is walking on her way.

« ПредишнаНапред »