The draught of bitterest gall was all the balm
They gave, t'enhance thy unslaked, burning thirst:
Thou, at whose words of peace
Did pain and anguish cease,
And the long buried dead their bonds of slumber burst.
Low bowed thy head convulsed, and drooped in death,
Thy voice sent forth a sad and wailing cry;
Slow struggled from thy breast the parting breath,
And every limb was wrung with agony.
That head whose veilless blaze
Filled angels with amaze,
When at that voice sprang forth the rolling suns on high.
And thou wert laid within the narrow tomb,
Thy clay-cold limbs with shrouding grave-clothes bound, The sealed stone confirmed thy mortal doom, Lone watchmen walk'd thy desart burial ground, Whom heaven could not contain,
Nor th' immeasurable plain
A vast Infinity inclose or circle round.
For us, for us, thou didst endure the pain ;
And thy meek spirit bowed itself to shame,
To wash our souls from sin's infecting stain,
T'avert the Father's wrathful vengeance-flame :
Thou, that could'st nothing win
By saving worlds from sin,
Nor aught of glory add to thy all-glorious name.
Oh! thou who dry'st the mourner's tear,
How dark this world would be,
If, when deceived and wounded here,
We could not fly to thee!
The friends who in our sunshine live,
When winter comes are flown ;
And he who has but tears to give,
Must weep those tears alone;
But thou wilt heal that broken heart,
Which like the plants that throw
Their fragrance from the wounded part,
Breathes sweetness out of woe.
When joy no longer soothes or cheers,
And even the hope that threw
A moment's sparkle o'er our tears
Is dimm'd and vanish'd too!
Oh who would bear life's stormy doom,
Did not thy wing of love
Come brightly wafting through the gloom,
One Peace-branch from above!
Then sorrow, touch'd by thee, grows bright
With more than rapture's ray;
As darkness shows us worlds of light
We never saw by day.
Poor is his triumph, and disgraced his name,
Who draws the sword for empire, wealth, or fame :
For him though wealth be blown on ev'ry wind,
Though Fame announce him mightiest of mankind,
Though twice ten nations crouch beneath his blade,
Virtue disowns him, and his glories fade:
For him no pray'rs are pour'd, no pœans sung,
No blessings chaunted from a nation's tongue :
Blood marks the path to his untimely bier;
The curse of widows, and the orphan's tear,
Cry to high Heav'n for vengeance on his head:
Alive detested, and accurst when dead.
Not so the Patriot Chief, who dared withstand
The base invader of his native land;
Who made her weal his noblest, only end;
Ruled, but to serve her; fought, but to defend ;
"Her voice in council, and in war her sword;
Loved as her father, as her God adored;"
Who firmly virtuous, and severely brave,
Sunk with the freedom that he could not save!
On worth like his the Muse delights to wait,
Reveres alike in triumph or defeat;
Crowns with true glory, and with spotless fame,
And honours PAOLI'S more than Frederick's name.
Pale is his cheek with deep and passionate thought,
Save when a fevered hectic crosses it,
Flooding its lines with crimson.-From beneath
The long dark fringes of his drooping lid
Stream forth the fitful glances of his eye,
Like star-beams from the bosom of the night.
Above his high and ample forehead float
The gloomy folds of his wild waving hair,
Even as the clouds that crown a lofty hill
With a more stern sublimity. Upon
That broad and prominent front, the fiery seal
Of Febris seems to burn; and on his lid
The swelling brow weighs heavily, as though
Bursting with thoughts for utterance too intense.
His lip is curled with something too of pride,
Which ill beseems the meekness and repose
That should, at such an hour, within his heart,
Spite of this world's vexations, be ensphered.
'Tis not disdain; for only those he loves
Are round him now, with mild, low whispered words,
Tendering heart-offered kindnesses,-and watching
With fond inquietude the couch whereon
His slender form reclines. What can it be?
Perchance some rooted memory of the past.
Some dream of injured pride that fain would wreak
Its force on dumb expression; some fierce wrong
Which his young soul hath suffered unappeased.
But thoughts like these must be dispelled before
That soul can plume its wings to part in peace.
And now his gaze is lifted to the face
Of one who bends above him with an air
Of sweet solicitude, and props his head
Even with her own white arms; until at length
The sliding pillow is replaced ;-but ere
His cheek may press on its uneven down,
Her delicate hand hath smoothed it.-Her blue eyes
With tenderness grew darker as they dwell
Upon the wreck before her ;-and a tear,
Collecting 'neath their fringes large and bright,
Fall on the snow of her high-heaving breast.
Too well divineth he the voiceless grief
Which breathes in each unbidden sigh, and beams
From forth her humid eyes; too well he knows
That love and keen anxiety for him,
Have paled the ruby of her lip, and chased
The rose's dye from her so beautiful cheek;
His quivering lips unclose, as if to pour
The fond acknowledgments of grateful love
On that sweet mourner's ear;-but his parched tongue
Denies its office. Gathering then each ray,
Each vivid ray of feeling from his heart
Into a single focus,-in his eye
His inmost soul is glassed; and love, deep love,
And grateful admiration beam confessed,
In one wild passionate glance!
Basks her awhile in that full blaze,-then stoops,
And hiding her pale visage in his bosom,
Murmurs sounds inarticulate, but sweet
As the low wail of summer's evening breath
Amid the wind-harp strings. Then bursts the tide
Of woe which may no longer be repressed;
Stirred from its source by chill hope-withering fears,
And from her charged lids, big drops descend
In quick succession. With more tremulous hand
Clasps she that sufferer's neck.
The damps of death are settling, and his eyes
Grow fixed and meaningless. She marks the change
With desperate earnestness; and staying even
Her breath, that nothing may disturb the hush,
Lays her wan cheek still closer to his heart,
And listens as its varying pulses move,
Haply, to catch a sound betokening life.
It beats; again another- -and another
And now hath ceased-for ever! What a shriek,
A shrill and soul-appalling shriek peals forth,
When the full truth hath rushed upon her brain!
Who may describe the rigidness of frame,
The stony look of anguish and despair,
With which she hangs o'er that unmoving clay?
Not I: My pencil hath no farther power,
So we'll let fall the Grecian painter's veil.
THE DEATH OF THE WORLD.
I dreamed the world was dead-the giant world!
And all the elements that had composed
Its mighty being, were decayed and gone.
The Sun, bright herald of the morning's smile,
Had lost his fires for ever-and the Moon,
That, born of silentness, would gently steal
Into night's placid bosom, and yet speak
With her pale light, had wept herself to death.
The Stars had perished, and the Sky itself
Was nothing now,-the Mountains which the winds
Had made the partners of their boisterous mirth-
The Vales to which the shepherd's rustic pipe
Had given a tongue, the Trees and flowing Streams
And Ocean with his billows-all were still.
There seemed no Heaven, no Earth-but boundless space,
A lone monotonous vacuity,
That pall'd the eye and sicken'd on the heart.
No Insect lived, and every Bird had passed
With its sweet song away; and Morn, and Noon
And Eve and dewy Night, and odorous Spring,
Who used to come with flower-wreathed diadem,
And smile upon the Earth and Summer bright,
Who gazed serenely through her sunny hair,
And marked her own loved roses wake to life-
And Autumn with his chaplet of brown leaves-
And Winter with his snowy coronet,
Had faded into chaos. I alone
Was living there, if life it can be called,
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