One more, the child of so much love,
Hath join'd thy family above ;
And rising, vanishing from view,
Calls thy affections upward too.

November 15th, 1819.

OLD AGE.

TO HIS MOTHER, ON HER BIRTH-DAY.*

SINCE first I learnt to welcome in
Thy birth-morn with a lay,

Dear mother, twice three years have been-
Have been, and past away;

And lightly have they past with me,

In song and thoughtless revelry.

And yet, I've mark'd thee growing weak,

And, not without a sigh,

Have seen less bloom upon thy cheek,
Less lustre in thine eye;

Have heard thee, backward to complain,

Yet speak of weariness and pain.

I've thought sometimes the hour was near When we must meet no more,

And I be left deserted here

For ever to deplore

The smile, without whose power to bless
This world would seem a wilderness.

See Memoir, page 137.

But moods like these would pass away,

And gayer hopes arise;

Hopes that would yet awhile delay
Thy passage to the skies,

To bless thy sons, and bless the poor,
With many a cheerful winter more.

Nor deem we every joy forsakes

The head that's hoary; though The harp for him no music makes, For him no flow'rets blow; Though falters every wither'd limb, And every worn-out sense is dim.

True, growing years the body wear;
But can they reach the soul?
The joys thou hast are seated there,
And mock their poor control;
For o'er those joys no sorrowing hour,
Not pain, not age, not death, has power.

Ask we those joys? Can age erase
The memory of the past?
Those pleasures, which our early days
Have treasur'd for our last?

No; past the sound, its echo lives,
And the dead rose fresh fragrance gives.

And every good our hand has done,
How small soe'er it be,

The portion'd daughter, 'prenticed son,
The prisoner set free;

All these are still in memory's store,These still are left; and ask we more?

And then, if fancy's frolic powers,
And hope's gay visions die,
Those better feelings still are ours
That cheer'd the days gone by;
Though glowing with a milder ray,
Sweet sun-set of a summer-day.

Friendship, like wine, with every year
Improving, ne'er is old;

And when did converse fail to cheer
The heart of human mould?

Or filial tenderness to 'suage

The natural aches of drooping age

?

Said I, that hope's gay dreams are gone? There's one that is not past;

One that grows bright as years come on,
And brightest at the last;

For, as thou bidst this world adieu,
A better opens to thy view.

O, ask the seaman what he feels,
His voyage almost o'er,

And nothing now but night conceals
His own, his native shore:

Ev'n that thou feel'st, my mother dear,
Thy home, thy heaven, thy God so near!

THE BASKET OF HOPE.

Now weave me a basket that's frail, but fair,
For the things that fairest and frailest are:
I'll pluck the sweet hopes of the year,
The gift to the broken heart that's dear.

First, broken heart, I send to thee
The folded bud of the lilac-tree;

It took its seat when the boughs were bare,
And kept it the live-long winter there.

Here's the snow-drop that cleft the frozen ground,
When there was not a peep of green around:
Here's the primrose that flower'd a day too soon,
Beguil❜d by a warm and sunny noon :
Here's the beautiful blue of an April morn :

Here's the earliest flower of the sweet May-thorn :
Here's the first cuckoo-note that is heard in the air,
When the winds are hush, and the sky is fair:
Here's the egg of the lark: here's the wild bee's hum,
Wheeling above the strawberry-bloom :
Here's the almond-blossom; is 't not gay?
But keep the hail and frost away:

And three green ears of the milky grain,
Glistening with drops of summer-rain.
Poor wretch! thy basket is bright to-day;
To-morrow the buds all wither away.
Then think thou thus ;-and let it be

A lesson, thou broken heart, to thee;—

"These would have been lovely and sweet in their

time,

But they were pluck'd before their prime."

TO-MORROW AND YESTERDAY.

SENT IN A LETTER TO A YOUNG SISTER-IN-LAW. 1820.

(MS.)

TO-MORROW and YESTERDAY, once on a time,
As each of them hung on an arm of To-DAY,
Are said to have quarrell'd-perhaps not in rhyme,
But an old Persian poet reported, they say-

Says Yesterday, "Sister, you promise so fair,
And things which you know you can never fulfil,
That I am reflected on every where,

As if I did nothing,-or nothing but ill."

"Nay, sister," To-morrow says, "take back the ball, Since mine's the misfortune, and yours is the guilt; There's nobody now will believe me at all,

Because you have prov'd-you'll excuse me-a jilt.”

"Sister, sister," quoth Yesterday, "you're a coquette, And your aim is with each one to dazzle and shine;" "You're a prude," quoth To-morrow, " and look with

regret,

On your joys that are past, and would envy me mine."

"Be at peace," says To-day, "be at peace, pray ye do, Since I am the suff'rer, so far as I see ;

While flirting with you, dear, and wrangling with you, There's no one will waste e'en a look

upon me."

THE BEE ORCHIS.

SENT TO HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW.

(MS.)

ROMANTIC freak of nature, this;

The bard, in lighter mind,

A moral metamorphosis

In thee might aptly find.

I'd fancy that a vagrant bee,

• Some sunny hour of spring,

Pale three-leaf'd flower! had lit on thee,

And staid his idle wing.