The cottage homes of England!
By thousands on her plains,
They are smiling o'er the silvery brook,
And round the hamlet-fanes :
Through glowing orchards forth they peep,
Each from its nook of leaves;
And fearless there the lowly sleep,
As the bird beneath their eaves.
The free fair homes of England!
Long, long in hut and hall
May hearts of native proof be reared
To guard each hallowed wall.
And green for ever be the groves,
And bright the flow'ry sod,
Where first the child's glad spirit loves
Its country and its God.
THE DYING CHRISTIAN TO HIS SOUL.
VITAL spark of heavenly flame,
Quit, oh! quit this mortal frame!
Trembling, hoping, ling'ring, flying;
Oh! the pain, the bliss of dying!
Cease, fond nature, cease thy strife,
And let me languish into life.
Hark! they whisper angels say,
Sister spirit, come away.
What is this absorbs me quite;
Steals my senses, shuts my sight,
Drowns my spirit, draws my breath?
Tell me, my soul, can this be death?
The world recedes-it disappears;
Heav'n opens on my eyes; my ears
With sounds seraphic ring.
Lend, lend your wings: I mount, I fly!
O Grave, where is thy victory?
O Death, where is thy sting?
TEN years ago-ten years ago—
Life was to us a fairy scene;
And the keen blasts of worldly woe
Had sered not then its pathway green;
Youth and its thousand dreams were ours―
Feelings we ne'er can know again;
Unwithered hopes-unwasted powers,
And frames unworn by mortal pain.
Such was the bright and genial flow
Of life with us ten years ago.
Time has not blanched a single hair
That clusters round thy forehead now;
Nor hath the cankering touch of care
Left even one furrow on thy brow;
Thine eyes are blue as when we met,
In love's deep truth, in earlier years;
Thy cheek of rose is blooming yet,
Though somewhat stained by secret tears;
But where, oh where's the spirit's glow
That shone through all ten years ago?
I too am changed-I scarce know why ;
Can feel each flagging pulse decay,
And youth, and health, and visions high
Melt like a wreath of snow away!
Time cannot sure have wrought the ill!
Though worn in this world's sickening strife,
In soul and form, I linger still
In the first summer month of life.
But look not thus-I would not give
The wreck of hopes that thou must share,
To bid those joyous hours revive,
When all around me seemed so fair! We've wandered on in sunny weather,
When winds were low and flowers in bloom, And hand in hand have kept together, And still will keep, 'mid storm and gloom, Endeared by ties we could not know When life was young-ten years ago!
Has fortune frowned? Her frowns were vain!
For hearts like ours she could not chill.
Have friends proved false? Their love might wane !
But ours grew fonder, firmer still.
Twin barques on this world's changing wave,
Steadfast in calms-in tempests tried-
In concert still our fate we'll brave,
Together cleave life's fitful tide,
Nor mourn, whatever winds may blow,
Youth's first wild dreams-ten years ago!
Have we not knelt beside his bed,
And watched our first-born blossom die ? Hoped, till the shade of hope had fled, Then wept till feelings' fount was dry. Was it not sweet, in that dark hour,
To think, 'mid mutual tears and sighs,
Our bud had left its earthly bower
And burst to bloom in Paradise?
What to the thought that soothed that woe
Were heartless joys-ten years ago?
Yes, it is sweet, when heaven is bright,
To share its sunny beams with thee!
But sweeter far, 'mid clouds and blight,
To have thee near to weep with me.
Then dry those tears: though something changed
From what we were in earlier youth,
Time that hath friends and hopes estranged,
Hath left us love in all its truth-
Sweet feelings we would not forego
For life's best joys-ten years ago!
THE music ceased, the last quadrille was o'er,
And one by one the waning beauties fled;
The garlands vanished from the frescoed floor,
The nodding fiddler hung his weary head.
And I-a melancholy single man—
Retired to morn my solitary fate.
I slept awhile; but o'er my slumbers ran
The sylph-like image of my blooming Kate.
I dreamt of mutual love, and Hymen's joys,
Of happy moments and connubial blisses;
And then I thought of little girls and boys,
The mother's glances, and the infant's kisses.
I saw them all in sweet perspective, sitting
In winter's eve around a blazing fire;
The children playing and the mother knitting,
Or fondly gazing on the happy sire.
The scene was changed. In came the baker's bill:
I stared to see the hideous consummation
Of pies and puddings that it took to fill
The stomachs of the rising generation.
There was no end to eating: legs of mutton
Were vanquished daily by this little host;
To see them, you'd have thought each tiny glutton
Had laid a wager who could eat the most.
The massy pudding smoked upon the platter,
The ponderous sirloin raised its head in vain ;
The little urchins kicked up such a clatter,
That scarce a remnant e'er appeared again.
Then came the school bill: board and education
So much per annum ; but the extras mounted
To nearly twice the primal stipulation,
And every little bagatelle was counted!
To mending tuck; a new Homeri Ilias ;
A pane of glass; repairing coat and breeches; A slate and pencil; binding old Virgilius; Drawing a tooth, an open draught, and leeches.
And now I languished for the single state,
The social glass, the horse and chaise on Sunday;
The jaunt to Windsor with my sweetheart Kate,
And cursed again the weekly bills of Monday.
Here Kate began to scold; I stampt and swore,
The kittens squeak, the children loudly scream ;
And thus awaking with the wild uproar,
I thanked my stars that it was but a dream.
Supposed to be addressed by the Rev. Dr. Carey, the learned and illustrious Baptist missionary at Serampore, to the first plant of this kind, which sprang up unexpectedly in his garden out of some English earth in which other seeds had been conveyed to him from this country.
THRICE Welcome! little English flower!
My mother country's white and red,
In rose or lily, till this hour,
Never to me such beauty spread!
Transplanted from thine island-bed,
A treasure in a grain of earth,
Strange as a spirit from the dead,
Thine embryo sprang to birth.
Thrice welcome, little English flower!
Whose tribes beneath our natal skies
Shut close their leaves while vapours lower;
But when the sun's gay beams arise,
With unabashed but modest eyes
Follow his motion to the west,
Nor cease to gaze till daylight dies,
Then fold themselves to rest.
Thrice welcome, little English flower!
To this resplendent hem sphere,
Where Flora's giant offspring tower
In gorgeous liveries all the year:
Thou, only thou, art little here,
Like worth unfriended or unknown,
Yet to my British heart more dear
Than all the torrid zone.
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