The thought of those far off
Has made his eyes o'erflow
With no unmanly tears;
Delighted, he recalls
Through what fair scenes his charmed feet have trod.
But ever when he tells of perils past,
And troubles now no more,
His eyes most sparkle, and a readier joy
Flows rapid to his heart.
No, William, no, I would not live again
The morning hours of life;
I would not be again
The slave of hope and fear;
I would not learn again
The wisdom by experience hardly taught.
To me the past presents
No object for regret;
To me the present gives
All cause for full content;
The future, it is now the cheerful noon,
And on the sunny-smiling fields I gaze
With eyes alive to joy;
When the dark night descends,
My weary lids I willingly shall close,
Again to wake in light.
ALAS for the oak of our fathers that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!
It grew and it flourish'd for many an age,
And many a tempest wreak'd on it its rage,
But when its strong branches were bent with the blast,
It struck its roots deeper and flourish'd more fast.
Its head tower'd high, and its branches spread round,
For its roots were struck deep, and its heart it was sound; The bees o'er its honey-dew'd foliage play'd,
And the beasts of the forest fed under its shade.
The oak of our fathers to freedom was dear,
Its leaves were her crown, and its wood was her spear.
Alas for the oak of our fathers that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!
There crept up an ivy and clung round the trunk,
It struck in its mouths and its juices it drunk;
The branches grew sickly, deprived of their food,
And the oak was no longer the pride of the wood.
The foresters saw and they gather'd around,
Its roots still were fast, and its heart still was sound
They lopt off the boughs that so beautiful spread,
But the ivy they spared on its vitals that fed.
No longer the bees o'er its honey-dews play'd,
Nor the beasts of the forest fed under its shade;
Lopt and mangled the trunk in its ruin is seen,
A monument now what its beauty has been.
The oak has received its incurable wound;
They have loosened the roots, though the heart may be sound;
What the travellers at distance green-flourishing see,
Are the leaves of the ivy that ruined the tree.
Alas for the oak of our fathers that stood
In its beauty, the glory and pride of the wood!
"The remembrance of youth is a sigh."-Ali.
MAN hath a weary pilgrimage
As through the world he wends;
On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends:
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,
And still remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.
To school the little exile goes,
Torn from his mother's arms,
What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemn'd to suffer through the day
Restraints which no rewards repay,
And cares where love has no concern, Hope lightens as she counts the hours That hasten his return.
From hard control and tyrant rules
The unfeeling discipline of schools,
The child's sad thoughts will roam,
And tears will struggle in his eye
While he remembers with a sigh
The comforts of his home.
Youth comes; the toils and cares of life
Torment the restless mind;
Where shall the tired and harass'd heart
Its consolation find?
Then is not youth as fancy tells
Life's summer prime of joy?
Ah no! for hopes too long delayed
And feelings blasted or betrayed,
The fabled bliss destroy,
And he remembers with a sigh
The careless days of infancy.
Maturer manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on,
But with the baseless hopes of youth
Its generous warmth is gone;
Cold calculating cares succeed,
The timid thought, the wary deed,
The dull realities of truth;
Back on the past he turns his eye
Remembering with an envious sigh
The happy dreams of youth.
So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage
With feeble step and slow;
New ills that latter stage await
And old experience learns too late
That all is vanity below.
Life's vain delusions are gone by,
Its idle hopes are o'er,
age remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.
"BETWENE the cytee and the chirche of Bethlehem, is the felde Floridus, that is to seyne, the felde floriched. For als moche as a fayre mayden was blamed with wrong and sclaundred, that she hadde don fornicacioun, for whiche cause sche was demed to the dethe, and to be brent in that place, to the whiche sche was ladd. And as the fyre began to brenne about hire, she made hire preyeres to oure Lord, that als wissely as sche was not gylty of that synne, that he wold help hire, and make it to be knowen to alle men of his mercyfulle grace; and whanne she had thus seyd, sche entered into the fuyer, and anon was the fuyer quenched and oute, and the brondes that weren brennynge, becomen white Roseres, fulle of roses, and theise werein the first Roseres and roses, bothe white and rede, that evere ony man saughe. And thus was this maiden saved be the grace of God."-The Voiage and Travaile of Sir John Maundeville.
NAY EDITH! spare the rose ;—it lives, it lives,
It feels the noon-tide sun, and drinks refresh'd
The dews of night; let not thy gentle hand
Tear its life-strings asunder, and destroy
The sense of being!-Why that infidel smile?
Come, I will bribe thee to be merciful,
And thou shalt have a tale of other times,
For I am skill'd in legendary lore,
So thou wilt let it live. There was a time
Ere this, the freshest sweetest flower that blooms,
Bedeck'd the bowers of earth. Thou hast not heard
How first by miracle its fragrant leaves
Spread to the sun their blushing loveliness.
There dwelt at Bethlehem a Jewish maid
And Zillah was her name, so passing fair
That all Judea spake the damsel's praise.
He who had seen her eyes' dark radiance
How it revealed her soul, and what a soul
Beam'd in the mild effulgence, woe was he!
For not in solitude, for not in crowds,
Might he escape remembrance, nor avoid
Her imaged form which followed every where,
And filled the heart, and fix'd the absent eye.
Woe was he, for her bosom own'd no love
Save the strong ardours of religious zeal,
For Zillah on her God had centered all
Her spirit's deep affections. So for her
Her tribes-men sigh'd in vain, yet reverenced
The obdurate virtue that destroyed their hopes.
One man there was, a vain and wretched man,
Who saw, desired, despair'd, and hated her.
His sensual eye had gloated on her cheek
Even till the flush of angry modesty
Gave it new charms, and made him gloat the more.
She loath'd the man, for Hamuel's eye was bold,
And the strong workings of brute selfishness
Had moulded his broad features; and she fear'd
The bitterness of wounded vanity
That with a fiendish hue would overcast
His faint and lying smile. Nor vain her fear,
For Hamuel vowed revenge and laid a plot
Against her virgin fame. He spread abroad
Whispers that travel fast, and ill reports
Which soon obtain belief; how Zillah's eye
When in the temple heaven-ward it was rais'd
Did wim with rapturous zeal, but there were those
Who had beheld the enthusiast's melting glance
With other feelings filled;-that 'twas a task
Of easy sort to play the saint by day
Before the public eye, but that all eyes
Were closed at night;—that Zillah's life was foul,
Yea, forfeit to the law.
Shame-shame to man
That he should trust so easily the tongue
Which stabs another's fame! the ill report
Was heard, repeated, and believed, and soon,
For Hamuel by his damned artifice
Produced such semblances of guilt, the maid
Was judged to shameful death.
There was a barren field; a place abhorr'd,
For it was there where wretched criminals
Received their death; and there they built the stake,
And piled the fuel round, which should consume
The accused maid, abandon'd, as it seem'd,
By God and man. The assembled Bethlemites
Beheld the scene, and when they saw the maid
Bound to the stake, with what calm holiness
She lifted up her patient looks to heaven,
They doubted of her guilt. With other thoughts
Stood Hamuel near the pile; him savage joy
Led thitherward, but now within his heart
Unwonted feelings stirr'd, and the first pangs
|