Sublime on the towers of my skiey bowers,
Lightning my pilot sits;
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder,
It struggles and howls by fits:
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea:
Over the rills, and the crags, and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves remains ;-
And I all the while bask in heaven's blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.
The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor-eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead.
As on the jag of a mountain-crag,
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle alit, one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings.
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath, Its ardours of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may
From the depth of heaven above;
With wings folded I rest, on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.
That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o'er my fleece-like floor,
By the midnight breezes strewn ;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent's thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.
I bind the sun's throne with a burning zone,
And the moon's with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanos are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam proof, I hang like a roof—
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch through which I march
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-coloured bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colours wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.
I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain, when, with never a stain
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air,
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph;
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb, I rise and unbuild it again.
LXII. THE ARAB MAID'S SONG.-Thomas Moore.
FLY to the desert! fly with me!
Our Arab tents are rude for thee;
But, oh! the choice what heart can doubt
Of tents with love, or thrones without?
Our rocks are rough-but, smiling there,
The acacia waves her yellow hair
Lonely and sweet; nor loved the less
For flowering in a wilderness.
Our sands are bare-but, down their slope
The silvery-footed antelope
As gracefully and gaily springs,
As o'er the marble courts of kings.
Then, come!-thy Arab maid will be
The loved and lone acacia-tree,
The antelope, whose feet shall bless,
With their light sound, thy loneliness.
Oh! there are looks and tones, that dart
An instant sunshine through the heart;
As if the soul that minute caught
Some treasure, it through life had sought;
As if the very lips and eyes,
Predestined to have all our sighs,
And never be forgot again,
Sparkled, and spoke before us then!
So came thy every glance and tone,
When first on me they breathed and shone,
New-as if brought from other spheres,
Yet welcome-as if loved for years!
Then fly with me!-if thou hast known
No other flame, nor falsely thrown
A gem away, that thou hast sworn
Should ever in thy heart be worn:
Come!-if the love thou hast for me
Is
pure and fresh, as mine for thee--
Fresh, as the fountain under ground,
When first 'tis by the lapwing found--
But if, for me, thou dost forsake
Some other maid, and rudely break
Her worshiped image from its base,
To give to me the ruined place;
Then, fare thee well! I'd rather make
My bower upon some icy lake,
When thawing suns begin to shine,
Than trust to love so false as thine!
LXIII. THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE.-Furlong.
OH! if the atheist's words were true,
If those we seek to save
Sink-and, in sinking from our view,
Are lost beyond the grave!
If life thus closed, how dark and drear
Would this bewildered earth appear―
Scarce worth the dust it gave:
A tract of black sepulchral gloom,
One yawning, ever-opening tomb!
Blest be that strain of high belief,
More heavenlike, more sublime,
Which says, that souls who part in grief
Part only for a time!
That, far beyond this speck of pain,
Far o'er the gloomy grave's domain,
There spreads a brighter clime-
Where care, and toil, and trouble o'er,
Friends meet, and meeting, weep no more!
LXIV. TO A SEA-GULL.-Gerald Griffin.
WHITE bird of the tempest! O beautiful thing,
With the bosom of snow, and the motionless wing,
Now sweeping the billow, now floating on high,
Now bathing thy plumes in the light of the sky;
Now poising o'er ocean thy delicate form,
Now breasting the surge with thy bosom so warm;
Now darting aloft, with a heavenly scorn,
Now shooting along, like a ray of the morn;
Now lost in the folds of the cloud-curtained dome,
Now floating abroad like a flake of the foam;
Now silently poised o'er the war of the main,
Like the Spirit of Charity brooding o'er pain;
Now gliding with pinion all silently furled,
Like an Angel descending to comfort the world!
Thou seem'st to my spirit-as upward I gaze,
And see thee, now clothed in mellowest rays,
Now lost in the storm-driven vapours, that fly
Like hosts that are routed across the broad sky-
Like a pure spirit, true to its virtue and faith,
'Mid the tempests of nature, of passion, and death!
Rise! beautiful emblem of purity, rise,
On the sweet winds of Heaven, to thine own brilliant skies;
Still higher! still higher! till, lost to our sight,
Thou hidest thy wings in a mantle of light;
And I think how a pure spirit gazing on thee,
Must long for that moment-the joyous and free-
When the soul, disembodied from Nature, shall spring,
Unfettered, at once to her Maker and King;
When the bright day of service and suffering past,
Shapes, fairer than thine, shall shine round her at last,
While, the standard of battle triumphantly furled,
She smiles like a victor serene on the world!
SHINE on, thou bright beacon, unclouded and free,
From thy high place of calmness, o'er life's troubled sea;
Its morning of promise, its smooth waves are gone,
And the billows roar wildly; then, bright one, shine on.
The wings of the tempest may rush o'er thy ray;
But tranquil thou smilest, undimmed by its sway;
High, high o'er the worlds where storms are unknown,
Thou dwellest all beauteous, all glorious,-alone.
From the deep womb of darkness the lightning-flash leaps,
O'er the bark of my fortunes each mad billow sweeps
From the port of her safety by warring-winds driven;
And no light o'er her course-but yon lone one of Heaven.
Yet fear not, thou frail one, the hour may be near,
When our own sunny headland far off shall appear;
When the voice of the storm shall be silent and past,
In some Island of Heaven we may anchor at last.
But, bark of eternity, where art thou now?
The wild waters shriek o'er each plunge of thy prow
On the world's dreary ocean thus shatter'd and tost;-
Then, lone one, shine on! "If I lose thee, I'm lost!"
LXVI.—THE VOICE AND PEN.-D. F. M'arthy.
OH! the Orator's Voice is a mighty power
As it echoes from shore to shore-
And the fearless Pen has more sway o'er men
Than the murderous cannon's roar.
What burst the chain far o'er the main,
And brightens the captive's den?
"Tis the fearless Voice and the Pen of
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!
Hurrah!
Hurrah! for the Voice and Pen!
The tyrant knaves who deny our rights,
And the cowards who blanch with fear,
Exclaim with glee, "No arms have ye-
Nor cannon, nor sword, nor spear!
Your hills are ours; with our forts and towers
We are masters of mount and glen."
Tyrants, beware! for the arms we bear
Are the Voice and the fearless Pen!
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