And some, in the camp, to the bugle's breath,
And the tramp of the steed on the echoing heath,
And the sudden roar of the hostile gun,

Which tells that a field must ere night be won.

And some, in the gloomy convict cell,
To the dull deep note of the warning bell,
As it heavily calls them forth to die,

When the bright sun mounts in the laughing sky.

And some to the peal of the hunter's horn,
And some to the din from the city borne,
And some to the rolling of torrent floods,
Far midst old mountains and solemn woods.

So are we roused on this chequered earth :
Each unto light hath a daily birth;
Though fearful or joyous, though sad or sweet,
Are the voices which first our upspringing meet.

But one must the sound be, and one the call,
Which from the dust shall awaken us all :
One-but to severed and distant dooms,
How shall the sleepers arise from the tombs?

THE BREEZE FROM SHORE.

'Poetry reveals to us the loveliness of nature, brings back the freshness of youthful feeling, revives the relish of simple pleasures, keeps unquenched the enthusiasm which warmed the spring-time of our being, refines youthful love, strengthens our interest in human nature, by vivid delineations of its tenderest and loftiest feelings; and, through the brightness of its prophetic visions, helps faith to lay hold on the future life."-CHANNING.]

Joy is upon the lonely seas,

When Indian forests pour

Forth, to the billow and the breeze,
Their odours from the shore ;

Joy, when the soft air's fanning sigh
Bears on the breath of Araby.

Oh! welcome are the winds that tell
A wanderer of the deep

Where, far away, the jasmines dwell,
And where the myrrh-trees weep!
Blest on the sounding surge and foam
Are tidings of the citron's home!

The sailor at the helm they meet,
And hope his bosom stirs,
Upspringing, midst the waves, to greet
The fair earth's messengers,
That woo him, from the moaning main,
Back to her glorious bowers again.

They woo him, whispering lovely tales
Of many a flowering glade,

And fount's bright gleam, in island vales
Of golden-fruited shade :

Across his lone ship's wake they bring
A vision and a glow of spring.

And, O ye masters of the lay!
Come not even thus your songs
That meet us on life's weary way,
Amidst her toiling throngs?

Yes! o'er the spirit thus they bear
A current of celestial air.

Their power is from the brighter clime
That in our birth hath part;

Their tones are of the world, which time
Sears not within the heart :

They tell us of the living light

In its green places ever bright.

They call us, with a voice divine,
Back to our early love,-

Our vows of youth at many a shrine,
Whence far and fast we rove.

Welcome high thought and holy strain
That make us Truth's and Heaven's again!

66

THE DYING IMPROVISATORE.1

'My heart shall be poured over thee-and break."
Prophecy of Dante.

THE spirit of my land,

It visits me once more!-though must die
Far from the myrtles which thy breeze hath fanned,
My own bright Italy!

It is, it is thy breath,

Which stirs my soul e'en yet, as wavering flame
Is shaken by the wind,-in life and death
Still trembling, yet the same!

Oh! that love's quenchless power
Might waft my voice to fill thy summer sky,
And through thy groves its dying music shower,
Italy! Italy!

The nightingale is there,

The sunbeam's glow, the citron-flower's perfume,

1 Sestini, the Roman Improvisatore, when on his deathbed at Paris, is said to have poured forth a Farewell to Italy, in his most impassioned poetry.

The south wind's whisper in the scented air-
It will not pierce the tomb!

Never, oh! never more,

On thy Rome's purple heaven mine eye shall dwell,
Or watch the bright waves melt along thy shore-
My Italy! farewell!

Alas!-thy hills among

Had I but left a memory of my name,
Of love and grief one deep, true, fervent song,
Unto immortal fame !

But like a lute's brief tone,
Like a rose-odour on the breezes cast,
Like a swift flush of dayspring, seen and gone,
So hath my spirit passed-

Pouring itself away

As a wild bird amidst the foliage turns
That which within him triumphs, beats, or burns,
Into a fleeting lay;

That swells, and floats, and dies,
Leaving no echo to the summer woods
Of the rich breathings and impassioned sighs
Which thrilled their solitudes.

Yet, yet remember me !

Friends! that upon its murmurs oft have hung,
When from my bosom, joyously and free,
The fiery fountain sprung.

Under the dark rich blue

Of midnight heavens, and on the star-lit sea,
And when woods kindle into spring's first hue,
Sweet friends! remember me!

And in the marble halls,

Where life's full glow the dreams of beauty wear,
And poet-thoughts embodied light the walls,
Let me be with you there!

Fain would I bind for you,

My memory with all glorious things to dwell!
Fain bid all lovely sounds my name renew-
Sweet friends! bright land! farewell!

MUSIC OF YESTERDAY.

"O! mein Geist, ich fühle es in mir, strebt nach etwas Ueberirdischem, das keinem Menschen gegönnt ist."-TIECK.

THE chord, the harp's full chord is hushed,
The voice hath died away,

Whence music, like sweet waters, gushed
But yesterday.

The awakening note, the breeze-like swell,
The full o'ersweeping tone,

The sounds that sighed

'Farewell, farewell!"

Are gone all gone!

The love, whose fervent spirit passed
With the rich measure's flow;

The grief, to which it sank at last-
Where are they now?

They are with the scents by summer's breath
Borne from a rose now shed:

With the words from lips long sealed in death-
For ever fled.

The sea-shell of its native deep
A moaning thrill retains;

But earth and air no record keep
Of parted strains.

And all the memories, all the dreams,
They woke in floating by;

The tender thoughts, the Elysian gleams-
Could these too die?

They died! As on the water's breast
The ripple melts away,

When the breeze that stirred it sinks to rest-
So perished they!

Mysterious in their sudden birth,

And mournful in their close,

Passing, and finding not on earth
Aim or repose.

Whence were they?-like the breath of flowers
Why thus to come and go?

A long, long journey must be ours

Ere this we know !

THE FORSAKEN HEARTH.

"Was mir fehlt?-Mir fehlt ja alles,
Bin so ganz verlassen hier !"

Tyrolese Melody.

THE Hearth, the Hearth is desolate! the fire is quenched and gone
That into happy children's eyes once brightly laughing shone;
The place where mirth and music met is hushed through day and
night.

Oh! for one kind, one sunny face, of all that there made light!

But scattered are those pleasant smiles afar by mount and shore.
Like gleaming waters from one spring dispersed to meet no more.
Those kindred eyes reflect not now each other's joy or mirth,
Unbound is that sweet wreath of home-alas! the lonely hearth!
The voices that have mingled here now speak another tongue,
Or breathe, perchance, to alien ears the songs their mother sung.
Sad, strangely sad, in stranger lands, must sound each household

tone:

The hearth, the hearth is desolate! the bright fire quenched and gone!

But are they speaking, singing yet, as in their days of glee?
Those voices, are they lovely still, still sweet on earth or sea?
Oh! some are hushed, and some are changed, and never shall one
strain

Blend their fraternal cadences triumphantly again.

And of the hearts that here were linked by long-remembered years,
Alas! the brother knows not now when fall the sister's tears!
One haply revels at the feast, while one may droop alone :
For broken is the household chain, the bright fire quenched and
gone!

Not so 'tis not a broken chain: thy memory binds them still,
Thou holy hearth of other days! though silent now and chill.
The smiles, the tears, the rites, beheld by thine attesting stone,
Have yet a living power to mark thy children for thine own.

The father's voice, the mother's prayer, though called from earth away,

With music rising from the dead, their spirits yet shall sway;
And by the past, and by the grave, the parted yet are one,
Though the loved hearth be desolate, the bright fire quenched and
gone!

THE DREAMER.

"There is no such thing as forgetting, possible to the mina, a thousand accidents may, and will, interpose a veil between our present consciousness and the secret inscription on the mind; but alike, whether veiled or unveiled, the inscription remains for ever."

ENGLISH OPIUM-EATER,

"Thou hast been called, O sleep! the friend of woe,
But 'tis the happy who have called thee so.'

SOUTHEY.

PEACE to thy dreams! thou art slumbering now

The moonlight's calm is upon thy brow;

All the deep love that o'erflows thy breast

Lies 'midst the hush of thy heart at rest

Like the scent of a flower in its folded bell,

When eve through the woodlands hath sighed farewell.