Ye who beheld Him fainting on the cross,
And did him hoinage, say, may mortal join
The hallelujahs of the risen God?
Will the faint voice and grovelling song be heard
Amid the seraphim in light divine?
Yes, He will deign, the Prince of Peace will deign,
For mercy, to accept the hymn of faith,
Low though it be and humble.-Lord of life!
The Christ, the Comforter, thine advent now
Fills my uprising soul. I mount, I fly
Far o'er the skies, beyond the rolling orbs;
The bonds of flesh dissolve, and earth recedes,
And care, and pain, and sorrow, are no more.
YET Once again, my Harp! yet once again,
One ditty more, and on the mountain-ash
I will again suspend thee. I have felt
The warm tear frequent on my cheek, since last,
At eventide, when all the winds were hush'd,
I woke to thee the melancholy song.
Since then with Thoughtfulness, a maid severe,
I've journey'd, and have learn'd to shape the freaks
Of frolic fancy to the line of truth;
Not unrepining, for my froward heart
Still turns to thee, mine Harp, and to the flow
Of spring-gales past-the woods and storied haunts
Of my not songless boyhood.-Yet once more,
Not fearless, I will wake thy tremulous tones,
My long-neglected Harp.-He must not sink;
The good, the brave-he must not, shall not sink
Without the meed of some melodious tear.
Though from the Muse's chalice I may pour
No precious dews of Aganippe's well,
Or Castaly, though from the morning cloud
I fetch no hues to scatter on his hearse :
Yet will I wreathe a garland for his brows,
Of simple flowers, such as the hedge-rows scent
Of Britain, my loved country; and with tears
Most eloquent, yet silent, I will bathe
Thy honor'd corse, my Nelson, tears as warm
And honest as the ebbing blood that flow'd
Fast from thy honest heart.-Thou, Pity, too,
If ever I have loved, with faltering step,
To follow thee in the cold and starless night,
To the top-crag of some rain-beaten cliff;
And as I heard the deep gun bursting loud
Amid the pauses of the storm, have pour'd
Wild strains, and mournful, to the hurrying winds,
The dying soul's viaticum; if oft
Amid the carnage of the field I've sate
With thee upon the moonlight throne, and sung
To cheer the fainting soldier's dying soul,
With mercy and forgiveness-visitant
Of heaven-sit thou upon my harp,
And give it feeling, which were else too cold
For argument so great, for theme so high.
How dimly on that morn the sun arose,
'Kerchieft in mists, and tearful, when-
My God, my God, oh, why dost thou forsake me? Why art thou distant in the hour of fear?
To thee, my wonted help, I still betake me,
To thee I clamor, but thou dost not hear.
The beam of morning witnesses my sighing,
The lonely night-hour views me weep in vain,
Yet thou art holy, and, on thee relying,
Our fathers were released from grief and pain.
To thee they cried, and thou didst hear their wailing,
On thee they trusted, and their trust was sure;
But I, poor, lost, and wretched son of failing,
I, without hope, must scorn and hate endure.
Me they revile; with many ills molested,
They bid me seek of thee, O Lord, redress: On God, they say, his hope and trust he rested, Let God relieve him in his deep distress.
To me, Almighty! in thy mercy shining,
Life's dark and dangerous portals thou didst ope;
And softly on my mother's lap reclining,
Breathed through my breast the lively soul of hope.
THROUGH Sorrow's night, and danger's path,
Amid the deepening gloom,
We, soldiers of an injured King,
Are marching to the tomb.
There, when the turmoil is no more,
And all our powers decay,
Our cold remains in solitude
Shall sleep the years away.
Our labors done, securely laid
In this our last retreat,
Unheeded, o er our silent dust
The storms of life shall beat.
Yet not thus lifeless, thus inane,
The vital spark shall lie,
For o'er life's wreck that spark shall rise
To see its kindred sky.
These ashes too, this little dust,
Our Father's care shall keep,
Till the last angel rise, and break
The long and dreary sleep.
'Then love's soft dew o'er every eye
Shall shed its mildest rays.
And the long-silent dust shall burst
With shouts of endless praise.
MUCH in sorrow, oft in woe,
Onward, Christians, onward go,
Fight the fight, and worn with strife,
Steep with tears the bread of life.
In Heaven we shall be purified, so as to be able to endure the splendors of the Deity.
AWAKE, Sweet harp of Judah! wake,
Retune thy strings for Jesus' sake;
We sing the Savior of our race,
The Lamb, our shield, and hiding-place.
When God's right arm is bared for war,
And thunders clothe his cloudy car,
Where, where, oh where, shall man retire,
To escape the horrors of his ire?
"T is he, the Lamb, to him we fly,
While the dread tempest passes by;
God sees his Well-beloved's face,
And spares us in our hiding-place.
Thus while we dwell in this low scene,
The Lamb is our unfailing screen;
To him, though guilty, still we run,
And God still spares us for his Son.
While yet we sojourn here below,
Pollutions still our hearts o'erflow;
Fallen, abject, mean-a sentenced race,
We deeply need a hiding-place.
Yet courage-days and years will glide,
And we shall lay these clods aside;
Shall be baptized in Jordan's flood,
And wash'd in Jesus' cleansing blood.
Then pure, immortal, sinless, freed,
We through the Lamb shall be decreed;
Shall meet the Father face to face,
And need no more a hiding-place.
The last stanza of this hymn was added extemporaneously one summer evening, when the author was with a few friends on the Trent, and singing it as he was used to do on such og
It is not grief that bids me moan,
It is that I arı all alone.
In woods and glens I love to roam,
When the tired hedger hies him home,
Or by the woodland's pool to rest,
When pale the star looks on its breast
Yet when the silent evening sighs
With hallow'd airs and symphonies,
My spirit takes another tone,
And sighs that it is all alone.
The autumn leaf is sear and dead,
It floats upon the water's bed;
I would not be a leaf, to die
Without recording sorrow's sigh!
The woods and winds, with sudden wail,
Tell all the same unvaried tale;
I've none to smile when I am free,
And when I sigh to sigh with me.
Yet in my dreams a form I view,
That thinks on me, and loves me too;
I start, and when the vision's flown,
I weep that I am all alone.
IF far from me the Fates remove
Domestic peace, connubial love,
The prattling ring, the social cheer,
Affection's voice, affection's tear,
Ye sterner powers, that bind the heart,
To me your iron aid impart!
O teach me, when the nights are chill,
And my fire-side is lone and still;
When to the blaze that crackles near,
I turn a tired and pensive ear,
And Nature conquering bids me sigh
For Love's soft accents whispering nigh,
O teach me, on that heavenly road
That leads to Truth's occult abode,
To wrap my soul in dreams divine,
Till earth and care no more be mine.
Let blest Philosophy impart
Her soothing measures to my heart;
And while with Plato's ravish'd ears
I list the music of the spheres,
Or on the mystic symbols pore,
That hide the Chald's sublimer lore,
I shall not brood on summers gone,
Nor think that I am all alone.
FANNY! upon thy breast I may not lie!
Fanny, thou dost not hear me when I speak!
Where art thou, love ?-Around I turn my eye,
And as I turn, the tear is on my cheek.
Was it a dream? or did my love behold
Indeed my lonely couch?-Methought the breath
Fann'd not her bloodless lip; her eye was cold
And hollow, and the livery of death
Invested her pale forehead-Sainted maid!
My thoughts oft rest with thee in thy cold grave Through the long wintry night, when wind and
Rock the dark house where thy poor head is laid.
Yet hush! my fond heart, hush! there is a shore
Of better promise; and I know, at last,
When the long sabbath of the tomb is past,
We two shall meet in Christ-to part no more.
These Fragments are the author's latest compositions; and were, for the most part, written upon the back of his mathematical papers, during the few moments of the last year of his life, in which he suffered himself to follow the impulse of his genius.
SAW'ST thou that light? exclaim'd the youth, and paused:
Through yon dark firs it glanced, and on the stream
That skirts the woods it for a moment play'd.
Again, more light it gleam'd,—or does some sprite
Delude mine eyes with shapes of wood and streams,
And lamp far-beaming through the thicket's gloom,
As from some bosom'd cabin, where the voice
Of revelry, of thrifty watchfulness,
Keeps in the lights at this unwonted hour?
No sprite deludes mine eyes,-the beam now glows
With steady lustre. Can it be the moon,
Who, hidden long by the invidious veil
O PALE art thou, my lamp, and faint
Thy melancholy ray:
When the still night's unclouded saint
Is walking on her way.
Through my lattice leaf-embower'd,
Fair she sheds her shadowy beam,
And o'er my silent sacred room,
Casts a chequer'd twilight gloom;
I throw aside the learned sheet,
I cannot choose but gaze, she looks so mildly sweet. Sad vestal, why art thou so fair,
Or why am I so frail?
Methinks thou lookest kindly on me, Moon,
And cheerest my lone hours with sweet regards! Surely like me thou'rt sad, but dost not speak
Thy sadness to the cold unheeding crowd; So mournfully composed, o'er yonder cloud Thou shinest, like a cresset, beaming far, From the rude watch-tower, o'er the Atlantic wave
O GIVE me music-for my soul doth faint;
I am sick of noise and care, and now mine ear
That blots the Heavens, now sets behind the woods? Longs for some air of peace, some dying plaint,
No moon to-night has look'd upon the sea Of clouds beneath her, answer'd Rudiger,
She has been sleeping with Endymion.
In this bad world, when mists and couchant storms
Hide Heaven's fine circlet, springs aloft in faith
Above the clouds that threat him, to the fields
Of ether, where the day is never veil'd
With intervening vapors; and looks down
Serene upon the troublous sea, that hides
The earth's fair breast, that sea whose nether face
To grovelling mortals frowns and darkens all;
But on whose billowy back, from man conceal'd,
The glaring sunbeams play.
That may the spirit from its cell unsphere. Hark how it falls! and now it steals along, Like distant bells upon the lake at eve, When all is still; and now it grows more strong, As when the choral train their dirges weave, Mellow and many-voiced; where every close, O'er the old minster roof, in echoing waves reflows.
O! I am rapt aloft. My spirit soars
Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind. Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores,
And floating pans fill the buoyant wind. Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed Far from its clayey cell it springs
Lo! on the eastern summit, clad in grey,
Morn, like a horseman girt for travel, comes,
And from his tower of mist,
Night's watchman hurries down.
THERE was a little bird upon that pile;
It perch'd upon a ruin'd pinnacle,
And made sweet melody.
The song was soft, yet cheerful, and most clear,
For other note none swell'd the air but his.
It seem'd as if the little chorister,
Sole tenant of the melancholy pile,
Were a lone hermit, outcast from his kind,
Yet withal cheerful.-I have heard the note
Echoing so lonely o'er the aisle forlorn,
-Much musing-
АH! who can say, however fair his view, Through what sad scenes his path may lie! Ah! who can give to others' woes his sigh, Secure his own will never need it too?
Let thoughtless youth its seeming joys pursue,
Soon will they learn to scan with thoughtful eye
The illusive past, and dark futurity:
Soon will they know-
AND must thou go, and must we part? Yes, fate decrees, and I submit, The pang that rends in twain my heart Oh, Fanny, dost thou share in it? Thy sex is fickle,-when away,
Some happier youth may win thy
|