But mine each change of social life; I greet the bridegroom and the bride: Herald of earthly pomp and pride, Then sunk the trumpet's boastful clang, And undisturb'd the Death-Bell rang THE VOICE OF THE OAK. GENIUS! if such may chance to dwell For many a course of sun and shade, And many a year its circle made, The while thy summer prime endured: To flood and flame of heaven inured, Slow centuries hast thou o'erstaid, By stern, majestic might secured From storms that wreck, or blights that fade. Thou, like a hermit sad and sage, In silence lone thy dwelling hast; Thine aspect is a living page, Where times o'erflown their annals cast; For through the watches of the past, Thou hast beheld, as age on age And thou, that saw'st them wear away, For Time thy giant strength has tried, Ere long, the vernal year, in vain, Shall seek this trembling shade of thine; Thee to infoliate, ne'er again Shall Spring her freshest garland twine. The presage of thy slow decline O'er all thy silver'd bark is plain Inscribed, in many a fatal sign, But, sure, a whisper faintly broke, With seeming voice!-Again it spoke! To still the echoes it awoke, Or bid its tongue forbear. 531 it gives thee, mild queen of the night, ret intelligent grace? uld I gaze with such tender delight Fair but insensible face? ntle enchantment possesses thy beam, n is cold as the glittering stream, you the sad heart of its sorrow beguile, ere is the mourner but welcomes thy smile, Joves thee almost as a friend? ar that looks bright on thy beam as it flows, ov'd thou dost ever behold; orrow that loves in thy light to repose, thee it has never been told; yet thou dost sooth me, and ever I find, hile watching thy gentle retreat, oonlight composure steal over the mind, oetical, pensive, and sweet. "Child of the dust! to being sprung Long since these boughs with age were bent, Thy useless lay is idly sung, Thy breath in vain conjecture spent. "What though with ancient pomp I wear "Thee little it imports to hear, How o'er the waining orb of time, Fleet ages dawn and disappear, Revolving in their course sublime. "The voice of years would tire to tell What desolating waste has been; ' What generations rose and fell Since erst these aged limbs were green. "For swift as o'er the changing skies Sunshine and winter whirlwinds sweep, The mortal race to being rise, And rest them in their slumber deep: "Some in the early bud are reft, And some in blossom immature; Of those to summer ripeness left, How few till Nature's fall endure! "For countless are the forms of fate That lurk in silent ambushment, The term so brief to antedate, To quench the flame so quickly spent. "O seek not, in the dust of years, The fragments strew'd by man's decay; Enough in every hour appears, To tell that all things wear away. "Even while the curious search is gone "For it is not the rushing flight Of ages when their march is done; "It is the sand that hourly keeps "The winds in destined courses fly, The sunbeam ceases not on high, |