THE SUNBEAM. THOU art no lingerer in monarch's hall, Thou art walking the billows, and Ocean smilesThou hast touch'd with glory his thousand isles— Thou hast lit up the ships, and the feathery foam, And gladden'd the sailor, like words from home. To the solemn depths of the forest-shades, Thou art streaming on through their green arcades, And the quivering leaves that have caught thy glow, Like fire-flies glance to the pools below. I look'd on the mountains-a vapor lay I look'd on the peasant's lowly cot— To the earth's wild places a guest thou art, Thou tak'st through the dim church-aisle thy way, And its pillars from twilight flash forth to day, And its high pale tombs, with their trophies old, Are bath'd in a flood as of burning gold. And thou turnest not from the humblest grave, Where a flower to the sighing winds may wave; Thou scatterest its gloom like the dreams of rest, Thou sleepest in love on its grassy breast. Sunbeam of summer, oh! what is like thee? -One thing is like thee, to mortals given,— The faith, touching all things with hues of Heaven. THE TRAVELLER AT THE SOURCE OF THE NILE. IN sunset's light o'er Afric thrown, The cradle of that mighty birth, So long a hidden thing to earth. He heard its life's first murmuring sound, A low mysterious tone; A music sought, but never found By kings and warriors gone; He listen'd-and his heart beat high- The rapture of a conqueror's mood The depths of that green solitude Though stillness lay, with eve's last smile, Night came with stars :-across his soul A shadow dark and strange, Breath'd from the thought, so swift to fall O'er triumph's hour-And is this all? No more than this!-what seem'd it now Bath'd his own mountain land! Whence, far o'er waste and ocean track, They call'd him back to many a glade, They call'd him, with their sounding waves, Back to his fathers' hills and graves. But darkly mingling with the thought Of each familiar scene, Rose up a fearful vision, fraught With all that lay between; The Arab's lance, the desert's gloom, Where was the glow of power and pride? With yearnings for his home; All vainly struggling to repress He wept the stars of Afric's heaven Beheld his bursting tears, Ev'n on that spot where fate had given The meed of toiling years. -Oh happiness! how far we flee Thine own sweet paths in search of thee!* *The arrival of Bruce at what he considered to be the source of the Nile, was followed almost immediately by feelings thus suddenly fluctuating from triumph to despondence. See his Travels in Abyssinia. |