What living wonder should arise,
To sooth mine ear, or greet mine eyes,
What victor, beauty, bard, or king?
Alas! the widow'd heart would turn,
Sick'ning, from these, and coldly spurn
All that their fame, or charms, or wit could bring.
Could these give pleasure to the eye
That pines one object to descry?
These the lone ear to rapture move,
For which earth holds but one dear voice,
Whose tones could bid it now rejoice?
Oh, answer for me, ye who truly love!
Oh thou, whom night and day I mourn,
Far from my sight too rudely torn,
Yet never parted from my soul;
Impatient, I would ask to see
Thee-thee alone; none, none but thee,
Ev'n though I died of joy beyond control!
MILD arch of promise! on the ev'ning sky
Thou shinest fair, with many a lovely ray,
Each in the other melting. Much mine eye
Delights to linger on thee; for the day
Changeful and many-weather'd, seem'd to smile,
Flashing brief splendour through its clouds a while,
That deepen'd dark anon, and fell in rain:
But pleasant it is now to pause, and view
Thy various tints of frail and wat'ry hue,
And think the storm shall not return again.
Such is the smile that piety bestows
On the good man's pale cheek, when he in peace, Departing gently from a world of woes, Anticipates the realm where sorrows cease.
From "The Council of Ten."
FOR ever, from my boyhood, was my mind
A willing slave to woman's witchery;
On her I lov'd to look, severe or kind,
As the young eagle gazes on the sky,
Drinking the sun-beams with delighted eye:
And all beside seem'd as a shrivell'd scroll,
While her strong spells came o'er me, brooding
nigh,
Like some eternal night-mare of the soul,
Which I could ne'er remove, and wish'd not to control.
To lie on some fond bosom, that could bear
A wounded spirit's waywardness;-the wreck
Of wild consuming passions, and long care;
Ev'n thus to find some being who would check
My vain remorse, and, ever smiling, deck
With roseate tinge my life's remaining day;
Imbibe her voice, and hang upon her neck ;-
Is all I ask of Heav'n, ere yet my clay
Is moulder'd to the dull congenial earth away!
Curs'd be the man, whose heart is not imbued
With the deep love of woman; nor its hue
Thence caught and colour'd; who can, unsubdued,
Behold the forms that might a world subdue,
Nor burns, nor thrills, nor trembles at the view!
Curs'd be the man, whose melancholy bile,
Or frozen pride, ne'er stoop'd to sigh or sue;
Whose gloom no female sorcery can beguile;
Who breathes in other air, nor lives on woman's
smile!
OH, fly! 'tis dire Suspicion's mien ;
And, meditating plagues unseen,
The sorc'ress hither bends:
Behold her torch in gall imbrued;
Behold her garment drops with blood
Of lovers and of friends.
Fly far! already in your eyes
I see a pale suffusion rise;
And soon, through ev'ry vein,
Soon will her secret venom spread,
And all your heart, and all your head
Imbibe the potent stain.
Then many a demon will she raise,
To vex your sleep, to haunt your ways;
While gleams of lost delight
Raise the dark tempest of the brain,
As lightning shines across the main,
Thro' whirlwinds and thro' night..
No more can Faith or Candour move;
But each ingenuous deed of love,
Which reason would applaud,
Now, smiling o'er her dark distress,
Fancy malignant strives to dress
Like Injury and Fraud.
Farewell to Virtue's peaceful times: Soon will you stoop to act the crimes, Which thus you stoop to fear :
Guilt follows guilt; and where the train Begins with wrongs of such a stain, What horrors form the rear!
'Tis thus, to work her baleful power, Suspicion waits the sullen hour
Of fretfulness and strife;
When care the weaker bosom wrings,
Or Eurus waves his murky wings
To damp the seats of life.
But come, forsake the scene unblest
Which first beheld your faithful breast
To groundless fears a prey :
Come, where with my prevailing lyre,
The skies, the streams, the groves conspire
To charm your doubts away.
Thron'd in the sun's descending car,
What Power unseen diffuseth far
This tenderness of mind?
What Genius smiles on yonder flood?
What God, in whispers from the wood,
Bids every thought be kind?
O Thou, whate'er thy awful name,
Whose wisdom our untoward frame,
With social love restrains;
Thou who, by fair affection's ties,
Giv'st us to double all our joys,
And half disarm our pains:
Let universal candour still,
Clear as yon heav'n-reflecting rill,
Preserve my open mind;
Nor this nor that man's crooked ways
One sordid doubt within me raise
To injure human kind.
THE spearmen heard the bugle sound,
And cheer❜ly smil'd the morn,
And many a brach, and many a hound,
Attend Llewellyn's horn:
And still he blew a louder blast,
And gave a louder cheer;
"Come, Gelert, why art thou the last,
Llewellyn's horn to hear?
"O where does faithful Gelert roam,
The flower of all his race?
So true, so brave-a lamb at home,
A lion in the chase!"
'Twas only at Llewellyn's board The faithful Gelert fed;
He watch'd, he serv'd, he cheer'd his lord, And sentinel'd his bed.
In sooth he was a peerless hound,
The gift of royal John ;
But now no Gelert could be found,
And all the chase rode on.
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