Returning at the pleasant holidays,
I felt from thy dumb welcome. Pensively
Sometimes have I remarked thy slow decay,
Feeling myself changed too, and musing much
On many a sad vicissitude of life!
Ah, poor companion! when thou followedst last
Thy master's parting footsteps to the gate
Which closed for ever on him, thou didst lose
Thy truest friend, and none was left to plead
For the old age of brute fidelity!
But fare thee well! Mine is no narrow creed;
And He who gave thee being did not frame
The mystery of life to be the sport
Of merciless man! There is another world
For all that live and move-a better one!
Where the proud bipeds, who would fain confine
Infinite Goodness to the little bounds
Of their own charity, may envy thee!
ON A LANDSCAPE OF GASPAR POUSSIN.
POUSSIN! how pleasantly thy pictured scenes
Beguile the lonely hour! I sit and gaze
With lingering eye, till charmed fancy makes
The lovely landscape live, and the rapt soul
From the foul haunts of herded human-kind
Flies far away with spirit speed, and tastes
The untainted air, that with the lively hue
Of health and happiness illumes the cheek
Of mountain liberty. My willing soul,
All eager, follows on thy fairy flights,
Fancy! best friend; whose blessed witcheries
With loveliest prospects cheat the traveller
O'er the long wearying desert of the world.
Nor dost thou, fancy! with such magic mock
My heart, as, demon-born, old Merlin knew,
Or Alquif, or Zarzafiel's sister sage,
Whose vengeful anguish for so many a year
Held in the jacinth sepulchre entranced
Lisvart and Perion, pride of chivalry.
Friend of my lonely hours! thou leadest me
To such calm joys as nature, wise and good,
Proffers in vain to all her wretched sons;
Her wretched sons who pine with want amid
The abundant earth, and blindly bow them down
Before the Moloch shrines of wealth and power,
Authors of evil. Oh, it is most sweet
To medicine with thy wiles the wearied heart,
Sick of reality. The little pile
That tops the summit of that craggy hill
Shall be my dwelling: craggy is the hill
And steep; yet through yon hazles upward leads
The easy path, along whose winding way,
Now close embowered, I hear the unseen stream
Dash down, anon behold its sparkling foam
Gleam through the thicket; and ascending on,
Now pause me to survey the goodly vale
That opens on my vision. Half-way up,
Pleasant it were upon some broad smooth rock
To sit and sun myself, and look below,
And watch the goatherd down yon high-banked path
Urging his flock grotesque; and bidding now
His lean rough dog from some near cliff to drive
The straggler; while his barkings loud and quick
Amid their trembling bleat arising oft,
Fainter and fainter, from the hollow road
Send their far echoes, till the waterfall,
Hoarse bursting from the caverned cliff beneath,
Their dying murmurs drown. A little yet
Onward, and I have gained the upmost height.
Fair spreads the vale below: I see the stream
Stream radiant on beneath the noontide sky.
A passing cloud darkens the bordering steep,
Where the town-spires behind the castle towers
Rise graceful; brown the mountain in its shade,
Whose circling grandeur, part by mists concealed,
Part with white rocks resplendent in the sun,
Should bound mine eyes,-ay, and my wishes too,-
For I would have no hope or fear beyond.
The empty turmoil of the worthless world,
Its vanities and vices, would not vex
My quiet heart. The traveller, who beheld
The low tower of the little pile, might deem
It were the house of God: nor would ne err,
So deeming, for that home would be the home
Of
peace and love, and they would hallow it
To Him. Oh, life of blessedness! to reap
The fruit of honourable toil, and bound
Our wishes with our wants!
That soothe the solitude of maniac hope,
Ye leave her to reality awaked,
Like the poor captive, from some fleeting dream
Of friends and liberty and home restored,
Startled and listening, as the midnight storm
Beats hard and heavy through his dungeon bars.
MUSINGS ON THE WIG OF A SCARE-CROW.
ALAS for this world's changes and the lot
Of sublunary things! yon wig that there
Moves with each motion of the inconstant air,
Invites my pensive mind to serious thought.
Was it for this its curious caul was wrought
Close as the tender tendrils of the vine
With cluster'd curls? Perhaps the artist's cane
Its borrowed beauties for some lady fair
Arranged with nicest art and fingers fine;
Or for the forehead fram'd of some divine
Its graceful gravity of grizzled grey;
Or whether on some stern schoolmaster's brow
Sate its white terrors, who shall answer now?
On yonder rag-robed pole for many a day
Have those dishonour'd locks endur'd the rains
And winds, and summer sun, and winter snow,
Scaring with vain alarms the robber crow,
Till of its former form no trace remains,
None of its ancient honours! I survey
Its alter'd state with moralizing eye,
And journey sorrowing on my lonely way,
And muse on fortune's mutability.
FAINT gleams the evening radiance through the sky,
The sober twilight dimly darkens round;
In short quick circles the shrill bat flits by,
And the slow vapour curls along the ground.
Now the pleased eye from yon lone cottage sees
On the green mead the smoke long-shadowing play;
The red-breast on the blossomed spray
Warbles wild her latest lay,
And sleeps along the dale the silent breeze.
Calm contemplation, 'tis thy favourite hour!
Come tranquillizing power!
view thee on the calmy shore
When ocean stills his waves to rest;
Or when slow-moving on the serges hoar
Meet with deep hollow roar
And whiten o'er his breast;
For lo! the moon with softer radiance gleams,
And lovelier heave the billows in her beams.
When the low gales of evening moan along,
I love with thee to feel the calm cool breeze,
And roam the pathless forest wilds among
Listening the mellow murmur of the trees
Full-foliaged, as they lift their arms on high
And wave their shadowy heads in wildest melody.
Or lead me where amid the tranquil vale
The broken stream flows on in silver light,
And I will linger where the gale
O'er the bank of violets sighs,
Listening to hear its softened sounds arise;
And hearken the dull beetle's drowsy flight:
And watch the horn-eyed snail
Creep o'er his long moon-glittering trail,
And mark where, radiant through the night, [light. Moves in the grass-green hedge the glow-worm's living
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