Page images
PDF
EPUB

BLANK VERSE.

CHILDHOOD.

In my poor mind it is most sweet to muse
Upon the days gone by; to act in thought
Past seasons o'er, and be again a child;
To sit in fancy on the turf-clad slope,

Down which the child would roll; to pluck gay flowers,
Make posies in the sun, which the child's hand
(Childhood offended soon, soon reconciled)
Would throw away, and straight take up again,
Then fling them to the winds, and o'er the lawn
Bound with so playful and so light a foot,
That the press'd daisy scarce declined her head.

THE GRANDAME.

On the green hill-top,

Hard by the house of prayer, a modest roof,
And not distinguish'd from its neighbour-baru,
Save by a slender-tapering length of spire,
The grandame sleeps. A plain stone barely tells
The name and date to the chance passenger.
For lowly born was she, and long had eat,
Well-earn'd, the bread of service: hers was else
A mounting spirit, one that entertain'd
Scorn of base action, deed dishonourable,
Or aught unseemly. I remember well
Her reverend image: I remember, too,
With what a zeal she served her master's house;
And how the prattiing tongue of garrulous age
Delighted to recount the oft-told tale

Or anecdote domestic. Wise she was,
And wondrous skill'd in genealogies,
And could in apt and voluble terms discourse
Of births, of titles, and alliances;
Of marriages, and intermarriages;
Relationship remote, or near of kin ;
Of friends offended, family disgraced-
Maiden high-born, but wayward, disobeying
Parental strict injunction, and regardless
Of unmix'd blood, and ancestry remote,
Stooping to wed with one of low degree.
But these are not thy praises; and I wrong
Thy honour'd memory, recording chiefly
Things light or trivial. Better 'twere to tell,
How with a nobler zeal and warmer love
She served her heavenly Master. I have seen
That reverend form bent down with age, and pain,
And rankling malady. Yet not for this
Ceased she to praise her Maker, or withdrew
Her trust in him, her faith and humble hope-
So meekly had she learn'd to bear her cross-
For she had studied patience in the school
Of Christ, much comfort she had thence derived,
And was a follower of the NAZARENE.

THE SABBATH BELLS.

THE cheerful Sabbath bells, wherever heard,
Strike pleasant on the sense, most like the voice
Of one who, from the far-off hills, proclains
Tidings of good to Zion: chiefly when
Their piercing tones fall sudden on the ear
Of the contemplant, solitary man,

Whom thoughts abstruse or high have chanced to lure
Forth from the walks of men, revolving oft,

And oft again, hard matter, which eludes

And baffles his pursuit-thought-sick, and tired

Of controversy, where no end appears,
No clew to his research, the lonely man
Half wishes for society again.

Him, thus engaged, the Sabbath bells salute
Sudden! his heart awakes, his ears drink in

The cheering music; his relenting soul
Yearns after all the joys of social life,
And softens with the love of human kind.

FANCY EMPLOYED ON DIVINE SUBJECTS

THE truant Fancy was a wanderer ever,

A lone enthusiast maid. She loves to walk
In the bright visions of empyreal light,
By the green pastures and the fragrant meads,
Where the perpetual flowers of Eden blow;
By crystal streams and by the living waters,
Along whose margin grows the wondrous tree
Whose leaves shall heal the nations; underneath
Whose holy shade a refuge shall be found
From pain and want, and all the ills that wait
On mortal life, from sin and death for ever.

COMPOSED AT MIDNIGHT.

FROM broken visions of perturbed rest
I wake, and start, and fear to sleep again.
How total a privation of all sounds,

Sights, and familiar objects, man, bird, beast,
Herb, tree, or flower, and prodigal light of heaven.
"Twere some relief to catch the drowsy cry
Of the mechanic watchman, or the noise
Of revel reeling home from midnight cups.
Those are the moanings of the dying man,
Who lies in the upper chamber; restless moans,
And interrupted only by a cough

Consumptive, torturing the wasted lungs.
So in the bitterness of death he lies,
And waits in anguish for the morning's light.
What can that do for him, or what restore?
Short taste, faint sense, affecting notices,
And little images of pleasures past,

Of health, and active life-health not yet slain,

Nor the other grace of life, a good name, sold
For sin's black wages. On his tedious bed
He writhes, and turns him from the accusing light,
And finds no comfort in the sun, but says,
"When night comes I shall get a little rest."
Some few groans more, death comes, and there an end
"I'is darkness and conjecture all beyond;

Weak Nature fears, though Charity must hope,
And Fancy, most licentious on such themes,
Where decent reverence well had kept her mute,
Hath o'erstock'd hell with devils, and brought down,
By her enormous fablings and mad lies,
Discredit on the gospel's serious truths
And salutary fears. The man of parts,
Poet, or prose declaimer, on his couch
Lolling, like one indifferent, fabricates

A heaven of gold, where he, and such as he,
Their heads encompass'd with crowns, their heels
With fine wings garlanded, shall tread the stars
Beneath their feet, heaven's pavement, far removed
From damn'd spirits, and the torturing cries
Of men, his breth'ren, fashioned of the earth,
As he was, nourish'd with the selfsame bread,
Belike his kindred or companions once-
Through everlasting ages now divorced,
In chains and savage torments to repent
Short years of folly on earth. Their groans unheard
In heav'n, the saint nor pity feels, nor care,
For those thus sentenced-pity might disturb
The delicate sense and most divine repose
Of spirits angelical. Bless'd be God,
The measure of his judgments is not fixed
By man's erroneous standard. He discerns
No such inordinate difference and vast
Between the sinner and the saint, to doom
Such disproportion'd fates. Compared with him,
No man on earth is holy called: they best
Stand in his sight approved who at his feet
Their little crowns of virtue cast, and yield
To him of his own works the praise, his due.

JOHN WOODVIL.

A TRAGEDY.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »