For other's weal, for other's woe,
Let me have smiles and tears to give
And all my busy cares bestow,
In some fond trusting heart to live.
And let a voice be murmuring near,
When other sounds are faint and low;
And whisper softly in my ear,
When death's chill dews are on my brow
“Yes, we shall meet again
When this world's strife is over; And where comes not care nor pain,
A better land discover."
THE LAST LAY OF THE MINSTREL.
Sweet lyre! say, why forsaken ?
Why sleeps that melting strain?
When will thy soul awaken
With sounds so sweet again?
Thy chords have gently warbled
The modest shepherd's name;
And proudly have they echoed
The haughty warrior's fame.
Sweet lyre! from thee oft has flow'd
The gay, the sprightly air;
Thou hast also sadly told
Of sorrow and despair;
When with sacred praise inspired.
Thy theme has soared on high,
The list'ning crowds admired,
And thought an angel nigh.
Now, forgotten and unstrung,
Thy numbers die away;
That soft strain so lately sung,
Was thy last, thy parting lay.
Let the mournful tear be shed,
Thy fame will soon expire;
For the minstrel's soul has fled,
He strikes an Angel's lyre.
THE FATE OF THE FRIENDLESS.
My life is like the summer rose,
That opens to the morning sky;
But ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground to die;
Yet on that rose's humble bed,
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if it wept such waste to see—
But none shall weep a tear for me.
My life is like the autumn leaf,
That trembles in the moon's pale ray;
Its hold is frail, its date is brief,
Restless, and soon to pass away;
Yet ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree shall mourn its shade;
The winds bewail the leafless tree,-
But none shall breathe a sigh for me.
My life is like the prints which feet
Have left on Tempe's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
All trace will vanish from the sand; Yet, as if grieving to efface,
All vestige of the human race,
On that lone shore loud moans the sea-
But none, alas ! shall mourn for me.
THE ISLES OF GREECE.
The Isles of Greece! the Isles of Greece !
Where burning Sappho loved and sung;
Where grew the arts of war and peace
Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung !
Eternal summer gilds them yet,
But all, except their sun, is set.
The Scian and the Teian muse,
The hero's harp, the lover's lute,
Have found the fame your shores refuse;
Their place of birth alone is mute
To sounds which echo further west,
Than your sires' "Islands of the Blest."
The mountains look on Marathon--
And Marathon looks on the sea;
And musing there an hour alone,
I dream'd that Greece might still be free;
For standing on the Persian's grave,
I could not deem myself a slave.
A king sate on the rocky brow,
Which looks o'er sea-born Salamis; And ships, by thousands, lay below,
And men in nations;—all were his !
He counted them at break of day—
And when the sunset, where were they?
And where are they? and where art thou,
My country? On thy voiceless shore
The heroic lay is tuneless now-
The heroic bosom beats no more!
And must thy lyre, so long divine,
Degenerate into hands like mine?
'Tis something, in the dearth of fame,
Though link'd among a fetter'd race,
To feel at least a patriot's shame,
Even as I sing, suffuse my face;
For what is left the poet here?
For Greeks a blush-for Greece a tear.
Must we but weep o'er days more blest?
Must we but blush? Our fathers bled.
Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopyle!
What, silent still? and silent all?
Ah! no; -the voices of the dead Sound like a distant torrent's fall,
And answer, "Let one living head,-
But one arise we come, we come!"
'Tis but the living who are dumb.
In vain-in vain: strike other chords;
Fill high the cup with Samian wine!
Leave battles to the Turkish hordes,
And shed the blood of Scio's vine!
Hark! rising to the ignoble call-
How answers each bold bacchanal !
You have the Pyrrhic dance as yet,
Where is the Pyrrhic phalanx gone?
Of two such lessons why forget
The nobler and the manlier one?
You have the letters Cadmus gave-
Think ye he meant them for a slave ?
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
We will not think of themes like these!
It made Anacreon's song divine :
He served but served Polycrates
A tyrant; but our masters then
Were still, at least, our countrymen.
The tyrant of the Chersonese
Was freedom's best and bravest friend! That tyrant was Miltiades!
Oh! that the present hour would lend Another despot of the kind!
Such chains as his were sure to bind.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine,
On Suli's rock, and Parga's shore,
Exists the remnant of a line
Such as the Doric mothers bore;
And there, perhaps, some seed is sown,
The Heracleidan blood might own.
Trust not for freedom to the Franks-
They have a king who buys and sells ;
In native swords, and native ranks,
The only hope of courage dwells:
But Turkish force, and Latin fraud,
Would break your shield, however broad.
Fill high the bowl with Samian wine!
Our virgins dance beneath the shade-
I see their glorious black eyes shine;
But gazing on each glowing maid,
My own the burning tear-drop laves,
To think such breasts must suckle slaves.
Place me on Sunium's marbled steep—
Where nothing save the waves and I,
May hear our mutual murmurs sweep;
There, swan-like, let me sing, and die :
A land of slaves shall ne'er be mine-
Dash down yon cup of Samian wine!
Dost thou not love, in the season of Spring,
To twine thee a flowery wreath,
And to see the beautiful birch-tree fling
Its shade on the grass beneath?
Its glossy leaf and its silvery stem;
Oh! dost thou not love to look on them?
And dost thou not love, when leaves are greenest,
And summer has just begun,
When in the silence of moonlight thou leanest,
Where glist'ning waters run,
To see by that gentle and peaceful beam,
The willow bend down to the sparkling stream?
And oh! in a lovely autumnal day,
When leaves are changing before thee,
Do not nature's charms, as they slowly decay,
Shed their own mild influence o'er thee?
And hast thou not felt, as thou stood'st to gaze,
The touching lesson the scene displays?
It should be thus, at an age like thine;
And it has been thus with me;
When the freshness of feeling and heart were mine, As they never more can be:
Yet think not I ask thee to pity my lot,
Perhaps I see beauty where thou dost not.
Hast thou seen, in winter's stormiest day,
The trunk of a blighted oak,
Not dead, but sinking in slow decay,
Beneath time's resistless stroke,
Round which a luxuriant Ivy had grown,
And wreath'd it with verdure no longer its own.
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