Is Care-Sin-Sorrow-more estranged,
More gently lenient Time?

Doth Friendship quaff from bowl more deep?
Bathes Hope in more delightful streams?
Comes Love to charm the pillow'd sleep
With brighter, holier dreams?

Ah, no! the ship of life is steer'd
More boldly to the central main,

Only to cope with tempests fear'd,
Lightning, and wind, and rain!
Around lurks shipwreck; hidden rocks
Beneath the billows darkling lie ;
Death threatens in the breaker's shocks
And thunder-cloven sky!

IV.

Hearken to Truth! Though joys remain, And friends unchanged and faithful prove,

The heart can never love again

As when it learn'd to love:

Oh! ne'er shall manhood's bosom feel
The raptures boyhood felt of yore ;

Nor fancy lend, nor life reveal

Such faery landscapes more!

Above the head when tempests break,
When cares flit round on ebon wing,
When Hope o'er being's troubled lake
No sunny gleam can fling;

When Love's clear flame no longer burns,

And Griefs distract, and Fears annoy,
Then Retrospection fondly turns
To long-departed joy-

The visions brought by sleep, the dreams
By scarce-awaken'd daylight brought,
And reveries by sylvan streams,

And mountains far remote.

V.

Elysium's hues have fled the joy
Of youth departs on seraph wing;
Soon breezes from the Pole destroy
The opening blooms of Spring!
We gaze around us; earth seems bright
With flowers and fruit, the skies are blue;

The bosom flutters with delight,

And deems the pageant true :

Then lo a tempest darkles o'er

The summer plain and waveless sea; Lash the hoarse billows on the shore; Fall blossoms from the tree;

Star after star is quench'd; the night

Of blackness gathers round in strife; And storms howl o'er a scene of blight ;— Can such be human life?

Expanding beauties charm the heart,

The garden of our life is fair;

But in a few short years we start,
To find a desert there!

VI.

Stars! far above that twinkling roll—
Stars! so resplendent, yet serene—
Ye look (ah! how unlike the soul)
As ye have ever been :

In

you 'tis sweet to read at eve

The themes of youth's departed day, Call up the past, and fondly grieve

O'er what hath waned away—

The faces that we see no more;

The friends whom Fate hath doom'd to roam;

Or silence, through Death's iron door,

Call'd to his cheerless home!

O! that the heart again were young ;
O! that the feelings were as kind,
Artless and innocent; the tongue
The oracle of mind:

O! that the sleep of Night were sweet,
Gentle as childhood's sleep hath been,

When angels, as from Jacob's feet,
Soar'd earth and Heaven between.

VII.

What once hath been no more can be

'Tis void, 'tis visionary all;

The past hath joined eternity—
It comes not at the call.

No! worldly thoughts and selfish ways

Have banish'd Truth, to rule instead ;

We, dazzled by a meteor-blaze,

Have run where Folly led ;

Yet happiness was found not there

The spring-bloom of the heart was shed; We turn'd from Nature's face, though fair, To muse upon the dead!

As dewdrops from the sparry cave
Trickling, new properties impart,
A tendency Life's dealings have
To petrify the heart.

There is an ecstasy in thought,

A soothing warmth, a pleasing pain ; Away! such dreams were best forgotThey shall not rise again!

ΤΟ

A WOUNDED PTARMIGAN.

I.

HAUNTER of the herbless peak,
Habitant 'twixt earth and sky,
Snow-white bird of bloodless beak,
Rushing wing, and rapid eye,
Hath the Fowler's fatal aim

Of thy freeborn rights bereft thee,
And, 'mid natures curb'd or tame,

Thus encaged, a captive left thee ?—
Thee, who Earth's low valleys scorning,

From thy cloud-embattled nest

Wont to catch the earliest morning
Sunbeam on thy breast!

II.

Where did first the light of day
See thee bursting from thy shell?
Was it where Ben-Nevis grey
Towers aloft o'er flood and fell?
Or where down upon the storm
Plaided shepherds gaze in wonder