Of wakening guilt, anticipating hell. The eye of Žillah as it glanced around
Fell on the murderer once, but not in wrath ; And therefore like a dagger it had fallen, Had struck into his soul a cureless wound. Conscience! thou God within us! not in the hour Of triumph, dost thou spare the guilty wretch, Not in the hour of infamy and death
Forsake the virtuous! they draw near the stake,- And lo! the torch!-hold hold your erring hands! Yet quench the rising flames!—they rise! they spread! They reach the suffering maid! Oh God protect The innocent one!
They rose, they spread, they raged ;~ The breath of God went forth; the ascending fire Beneath its influence bent, and all its flames In one long lightning flash concentrating, Darted and blasted Hamuel,-him alone. Hark! what a fearful scream the multitude Pour forth!-and yet more miracles! the stake
Buds out, and spreads its light green leaves, and bowers, The innocent maid, and roses bloom around,
Now first beheld since Paradise was lost,
And fill with Eden odours all the air.
THE TRAVELLER'S RETURN.
SWEET to the morning traveller The sky-lark's early song,
Whose twinkling wings are seen at fits The dewy light among.
And cheering to the traveller
The gales that round him play,
When faint and heavily he drags
Along his noon-tide way.
And when beneath the unclouded sun
Full wearily toils he,
The flowing water makes to him
A pleasant melody.
And when the evening light decays And all is calm around, There is sweet music to his ear In the distant sheep-bells' sound.
But oh! of all delightful sounds Of evening or of morn,
The sweetest is the voice of love. That welcomes his return.
NAY William, nay, not so; the changeful year In all its due successions to my sight Presents but varied beauties, transient all, All in their season good. These fading leaves That with their rich variety of hues
Make yonder forest in the slanting sun So beautiful, in you awake the thought
Of winter, cold, drear winter, when these trees Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch
Its bare brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread Its colours to the day, and not a bird Carol its joyaunce-but all nature wear One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate, To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike. To me their many-coloured beauties speak Of times of merriment and festival, The year's best holyday: I call to mind The school-boy days, when in the falling leaves I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign Of coming Christmas, when at morn I took My wooden kalender, and counting up Once more its often-told account, smooth'd off Each day with more delight the daily notch. To you the beauties of the autumnal year Make mournful emblems, and you think of man Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit-broke, Bending beneath the burthen of his years,
Sense-dull'd and fretful, "full of aches and pains,"
Yet clinging still to life. To me they shew The calm decay of nature, when the mind Retains its strength, and in the languid eye Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy That makes old age look lovely. All to you Is dark and cheerless; you in this fair world See some destroying principle abroad, Air, earth, and water full of living things, Each on the other preying; and the ways Of man, a strange perplexing labyrinth, Where crimes and miseries, each producing each, Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope That should in death bring comfort. Oh my frien That thy faith were as mine! that thou couldst see Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction; couldst behold The strifes and tumults of this troubled world With the strong eye that sees the promised day Dawn through this night of tempest! all things then Would minister to joy; then should thine heart Be healed and harmonized, and thou shouldst feel God, always, everywhere, and all in all.
THOU chronicle of crimes! I read no more- For I am one who willingly would love His fellow kind. O gentle poesy,
Receive me from the court's polluted scenes, From dungeon horrors, from the fields of war, Receive me to your haunts,-that I may nurse My nature's better feelings, for Sickens at man's misdeeds!
I spake when lo! She stood before me in her majesty,
Clio, the strong-eyed muse. Upon her brow Sate a calm anger. Go-young man, she cried, Sigh among myrtle bowers, and let thy soul Effuse itself in strains so sorrowful sweet, That love-sick maids may weep upon thy page in most delicious sorrow. Oh shame! shame!
Was it for this I waken'd thy young mind? Was it for this I made thy swelling heart Throb at the deeds of Greece, and thy boy's eye So kindle when that glorious Spartan died? Boy! boy! deceive me not! what if the tale Of murder'd millions strike a chilling pang, What if Tiberius in his island stews,
And Philip at his beads, alike inspire
Strong anger and contempt; hast thou not risen With nobler feelings? with a deeper love For freedom? Yes-most righteously thy soul Loathes the black history of human crimes And human misery! let that spirit fill Thy song, and it shall teach thee, boy! to raise Strains such as Cato might have deign'd to hear, As Sidney in his hall of bliss may love.
STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE FIRST OF DECEMBER, 1793.
THOUGH now no more the musing ear Delights to listen to the breeze,
That lingers o'er the green wood shade, I love thee, winter! well.
Sweet are the harmonies of spring, Sweet is the summer's evening gale, And sweet the autumnal winds that shake
The many-coloured grove.
And pleasant to the sobered soul
The silence of the wintry scene,
When nature shrouds her in her trance
In deep tranquillity.
Not undelightful now to roam
The wild heath sparkling on the sight;
Not undelightful now to pace
The forest's ample rounds;
And see the spangled branches shine, And mark the moss of many a hue That varies the old tree's brown bark, Or o'er the gray stone spreads.
And mark the clustered berries bright Amid the holly's gay green leaves; The ivy round the leafless oak That clasps its foliage close.
So virtue diffident of strength Clings to religion's firmer aid, And by religion's aid upheld Endures calamity.
Nor void of beauties now the spring, Whose waters hid from summer sun Have soothed the thirsty pilgrim's ear With more than melody.
The green moss shines with icy glare; The long grass bends its spear-like form; And lovely is the silvery scene
When faint the sun-beams smile.
Reflection, too, may love the hour When nature, hid in winter's grave, No more expands the bursting bud, Or bids the flowret bloom.
For nature soon in spring's best charms Shall rise revived from winter's grave, Again expand the bursting bud,
And bid the flowret bloom.
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