Langayne!-how doth the word come back
With magic meaning to the heart,
As memory roams the sunny track,
Mine is the charm whose mystic sway
The Spirits of past Delight obey;
Let but the tuneful talisman sound,
And they come, like Genii, hovering round.
And mine is the gentle song, that bears,
From soul to soul, the wishes of love,
From which hope's dreams were loath to part! As a hird, that wafts through genial airs
No joy like by-past joy appears;
For what is gone we freak and pine. Were life spun out a thousand years, It could not match Langsyne!
Langsyne!-the days of childhood warm,
When, tottering by a mother's knee,
Each sight and sound had power to charm,
And hope was high, and thought was free.
Langsyne!-the merry school-boy days--
How sweetly then life's sun did shine!
Oh! for the glorious pranks and plays,
The raptures of Langsyne!
Langsyne!-yes, in the sound, I hear
The rustling of the summer grove;
And view those angel features near
Which first awoke the heart to love.
How sweet it is in pensive mood,
At windless midnight to recline,
And fill the mental solitude
With spectres from Langsyne!
Langsyne! ah, where are they who shared
With us its pleasures bright and blythe!
Kindly with some hath fortune fared;
And some have bow'd beneath the scythe
Of Death; while others scatter'd far
O'er foreign lands at fate repine,
Oft wandering forth, 'neath twilight's star,
To muse on dear Langsyne!
Langsyne!-the heart can never be
Again so full of guileless trust;
Langsyne! the eyes no more shall see,
Ah no! the rainbow hopes of youth.
Langsyne! with thee resides a spell
To raise the spirit, and refine.
Farewell! there can be no farewell
To thee, loved, lost Langsyne!
SONG OF THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC.
Mine is the lay that lightly floats,
And mine are the murmuring, dying notes,
That fall as soft as snow on the sea,
And melt in the heart as instantly!
And the passionate strain that, deeply going,
Refines the bosom it trembles through,
As the musk-wind, over the water blowing,
Ruffles the wind but sweetens it too!
The cinnamon seed from grove to grove.1
"Tis I that mingle in sweet measure
The past, the present, and future of pleasure;
When memory links the tone that is gone
With the blissful tone that's still in the ear;
And hope from a heavenly note flies on
To a note more heavenly still that is near!
The warrior's heart, when touched by me,
Can as downy, soft, and as yielding be
As his own white plume, that high amid death
Through the field has shone-yet moves with a
breath.
And, oh, how the eyes of beauty glisten,
When Music has reached her inward soul, Like the silent Stars, that wink and listen While heaven's eternal Melodies roll.
There was not on that day a speck to stain
The azure heaven: the blessed sun alone,
In unapproachable divinity,
Career'd rejoicing in the fields of light.
How beautiful, beneath the bright blue sky,
The billows heave! one glowing green expanse,
Save where along the line of bending shore,
Such hue is thrown, as when the peacock's neck
Assumes its proudest tint of amethyst,
Embathed in emerald glory: all the flocks
Of ocean are abroad: like floating foam
The sea-gulls rise and fall upon the waves:
With long protruded neck the cormorants
Wing their far flight aloft, and round and round
The plovers wheel, and give their note of joy.
It was a day that sent into the heart
A summer feeling; even the insect swarms,
From the dark nooks and coverts issued forth
To sport through one day of existence more.
The solitary primrose on the bank
Seem'd now as if it had no cause to mourn
Its bleak autumnal birth; the rock and shores,
The forests, and the everlasting hills,
Smiled in the joyful sunshine; they partook
The universal blessing.
1"The Pompadour pigeon is the species, which, by carrying the fruit of the cinnamon to different places, is a great disseminator of this valuable tree." See Brown's Illustr. Tab. 19.