What lures thee thus to stay With silence and decay, Fix'd on the wreck of cold mortality? The thoughts once chamber'd there, Have gather'd up their treasures and are gone ;Will the dust tell thee where That which hath burst the prison-house is flown? Rise, nursling of the day! If thou would'st trace its way— Earth has no voice to make the secret known. Who seeks the vanish'd bird Take the bright wings of morn! THE BELL AT SEA. The dangerous islet called the Bell Rock, on the coast of Fife, used formerly to be marked only by a bell, which was so placed as to be swung by the motion of the waves, when the tide rose above the rock. A lighthouse has since been erected there. WHEN the tide's billowy swell Had reach'd its height, Then toll'd the rock's lone bell, THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM. Far over cliff and surge Swept the deep sound, Making each wild wind's dirge Yet that funereal tone Steering through darkness on With fearless breast. E'en so may we, that float THE SUBTERRANEAN STREAM. "Thou stream, Whose source is inaccessibly profound, Whither do thy mysterious waters tend? DARKLY thou glidest onward, Thou deep and hidden wave! The laughing sunshine hath not look'd Into thy secret cave. Thy current makes no music. A muffled voice of mystery, 181 No brighter line of verdure The halcyon doth not seek thee, Her glorious wings to lave; Thou know'st no tint of the summer sky, Thou dark and hidden wave! Yet once will day behold thee, Fresh bursting from their cavern'd veins, Leap thy lone waters free. There wilt thou greet the sunshine Oh! art thou not, dark river, Like the fearful thoughts untold, Those earth-born strange misgivings- They hold no heart communion, The grave's departed throng. THE SILENT MULTITUDE. Wild is their course, and lonely, And fruitless in man's breast; They come and go, and leave no trace Yet surely must their wanderings, THE SILENT MULTITUDE. "For we are many in our solitudes." A MIGHTY and a mingled throng Lament of Tasso The dwellers of a thousand homes- The soldier and his chief were there- The friends, the sisters of one hearth- There lovers met, between whose lives After that heart-sick hope deferr'd- You might have heard the rustling leaf, The shiver of an insect's wing, On that thick-peopled ground. 183 Your voice to whispers would have died, Your tread the softest moss have sought, What held the countless multitude Was it some pageant of the air— Some glory high above, That link'd and hush'd those human souls In reverential love? Or did some burdening passion's weight - A mightier thing-Death, Death himself Kindred were there-yet hermits all- THE ANTIQUE SEPULCHRE.' O EVER joyous band Of revellers amidst the southern vines ! "Les sarcophages même chez les anciens, ne rappellent que des idées guerrières ou riantes:-on voit des jeux, des danses, representés en bas-relief sur les tombeaux." Corinne. |