Life-spirit-life-immortal and divine

Is there and yet how dark a death was thine!

Could it-oh! could it be-meek child of song?
The might of gentleness on that fair brow-
Was the celestial gift no shield from wrong?
Bore it no talisman to ward the blow?
Ask if a flower, upon the billows cast,
Might brave their strife—a flute-note hush the blast?

Are there not deep sad oracles to read

In the clear stillness of that radiant face? Yes, even like thee must gifted spirits bleed, Thrown on a world, for heavenly things no place! Bright exiled birds that visit alien skies, Pouring on storms their suppliant melodies.

And seeking ever some true, gentle breast,

Whereon their trembling plumage might repose, And their free song-notes, from that happy nest,

Gush as a fount that forth from sunlight flows; Vain dream! the love whose precious balms might

save,

Still, still denied-they struggle to the grave.

Yet my heart shall not sink!—another doom,

Victim! hath set its promise in thine eye;
A light is there, too quenchless for the tomb,
Bright earnest of a nobler destiny;
Telling of answers, in some far-off sphere,
To the deep souls that find no echo here.

COME HOME.

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COME HOME!

COME home!-there is a sorrowing breath
In music since ye went,

And the early flower-scents wander by,

With mournful memories blent.

The tones in every household voice

Are grown more sad and deep,

And the sweet word-brother-wakes a wish
To turn aside and weep.

O ye beloved! come home!-the hour
Of many a greeting tone,
The time of hearth-light and of song
Returns and ye are gone!

And darkly, heavily it falls

On the forsaken room,

Burdening the heart with tenderness,
That deepens 'midst the gloom.

Where finds it you, ye wandering ones?
With all your boyhood's glee
Untamed, beneath the desert's palm,
Or on the lone mid-sea?
By stormy hills of battles old?

Or where dark rivers foam ?—

Oh! life is dim where ye are not-
Back, ye beloved, come home!

Come with the leaves and winds of spring,
And swift birds, o'er the main !

Our love is grown too sorrowful—
Bring us its youth again!
Bring the glad tones to music back!
Still, still your home is fair,

The spirit of your sunny life
Alone is wanting there!

THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.

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Implora pace!” *

ONE draught, kind fairy! from that fountain deep,
To lay the phantoms of a haunted breast,
And lone affections, which are griefs, to steep
In the cool honey-dews of dreamless rest;
And from the soul the lightning-marks to lave-
One draught of that sweet wave!

Yet, mortal, pause!—within thy mind is laid
Wealth, gather'd long and slowly; thoughts divine
Heap that full treasure-house; and thou hast made
The gems of many a spirit's ocean thine ;-
Shall the dark waters to oblivion bear

A pyramid so fair?

Pour from the fount! and let the draught efface All the vain lore by memory's pride amass'd,

He describes

* Quoted from a letter of Lord Byron's. the impression produced upon him by some tombs at Bologna, bearing this simple inscription, and adds, "When I die, I could wish that some friend would see these words, and no other, placed above my grave,- Implora pace.'

THE FOUNTAIN OF OBLIVION.

So it but sweep along the torrent's trace,
And fill the hollow channels of the past;
And from the bosom's inmost folded leaf,

Rase the one master-grief!

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Yet pause once more !—all, all thy soul hath known,
Loved, felt, rejoiced in, from its grasp must fade!
Is there no voice whose kind awakening tone
A sense of spring-time in thy heart hath made?
No eye whose glance thy daydreams would recall?
-Think-would'st thou part with all?

Fill with forgetfulness!—there are, there are
Voices whose music I have loved too well;
Eyes of deep gentleness-but they are far-
Never! oh never, in my home to dwell!
Take their soft looks from off my yearning soul-
Fill high th' oblivious bowl!

Yet pause again!-with memory wilt thou cast
The undying hope away, of memory born?
Hope of reunion, heart to heart at last,

No restless doubt between, no rankling thorn?
Would'st thou erase all records of delight

That make such visions bright?

Fill with forgetfulness, fill high!—yet stay-
'Tis from the past we shadow forth the land
Where smiles, long lost, again shall light our way,
And the soul's friends be wreath'd in one bright band:
-Pour the sweet waters back on their own rill,

I must remember still.

For their sake, for the dead-whose image nought
May dim within the temple of my breast-

For their love's sake, which now no earthly thought
May shake or trouble with its own unrest,
Though the past haunt me as a spirit-yet
I ask not to forget.