Why should this worthless tegument endure,
If its undying guest be lost for ever?
Oh! let us keep the soul embalmed and pure
In living virtue,—that when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom!
WHEN the radiant morn of creation broke,
And the world in the smile of God awoke,
And the empty realms of darkness and death
Were moved through their depths by his mighty breath,
And orbs of beauty and spheres of flame
From the void abyss by myriads came,-
In the joy of youth as they darted away,
Through the widening wastes of space to play,
Their silver voices in chorus rung,
And this was the song the bright ones sung:
'Away, away, through the wide, wide sky,—
The fair blue fields that before us lie,
Each sun, with the worlds that around him roll,
Each planet, poised on her turning pole;
With her isles of green, and her clouds of white,
And her waters that lie like fluid light.
"For the Source of Glory uncovers his face,
And the brightness o'erflows unbounded space;
And we drink, as we go, the luminous tides
In our ruddy air and our blooming sides:
Lo, yonder the living splendors play;
Away, on our joyous path, away!
"Look, look, through our glittering ranks afar,
In the infinite azure, sfar after star,
How they brighten and bloom as they swiftly pass!
How the verdure runs o'er each rolling mass!
And the path of the gentle winds is seen,
Where the small waves dance, and the young woods lean.
"And see, where the brighter day-beams pour,
How the rainbows hang in the sunny shower;
And the morn and eve, with their pomp of hues,
Shift o'er the bright planets and shed their dews;
And 'twixt them both, o'er the teeming ground,
With her shadowy cone the night goes round!
Away, away! in our blossoming bowers,
In the soft air wrapping these spheres of ours,
In the seas and fountains that shine with morn,
See, love is brooding, and life is born,
And breathing myriads are breaking from night,
To rejoice like us, in motion and light.
"Glide on in your beauty, ye youthful spheres,
To weave the dance that measures the years;
Glide on, in the glory and gladness sent,
To the furthest wall of the firmament,-
The boundless visible smile of Him,
To the veil of whose brow your lamps are dim.
A TRAVELLER through a dusty road
Strewed acorns on the lea,
And one took root, and sprouted up,
And grew into a tree.
Love sought its shade at evening time,
To breathe its early vows;
And age was pleased, in heats of noon,
To bask beneath its boughs.
The dormouse loved its dangling twig,
The birds sweet music bore;
It stood, a glory in its place-
A blessing evermore.
A little spring had lost its way
Amid the grass and fern-
A passing stranger scooped a well,
Where weary men might turn;
He walled it in, and hung with care
A ladle at the brink-
He thought not of the deed he did,
But judged that toil might drink.
He passed again; and, lo! the well,
By summers never dried,
Had cooled ten thousand parching tongues,
And saved a life beside!
A dreamer dropped a random thought,
'T was old, and yet 't was new—
A simple fancy of the brain,
But strong in being true;
It shone upon a genial mind,
And, lo! its light became
A lamp of life, a beacon ray,
A monitory flame.
The thought was small-its issues great,
A watch-fire on a hill;
It sheds its radiance far adown,
And cheers the valley still.
A nameless man, amid a crowd
That thronged the daily mart,
Let fall a word of hope and love,
Unstudied, from the heart;
A whisper on the tumult thrown—
A transitory breath;
It raised a brother from the dust,
It saved a soul from death.
O germ! O fount! O word of love!
O thought at random cast!
Ye were but little at the first,
But mighty at the last.
FORGIVE and forget! why the world would be lonely,
The garden a wilderness left to deform;
If the flowers but remembered the chilling winds only,
And the fields gave no verdure for fear of the storm!
Oh, still in thy loveliness emblem the flower,
Give the fragrance of feeling to sweeten life's sway;
And prolong not again the brief cloud of an hour,
With tears that but darken the rest of the day!
Forgive and forget! there's no breast so unfeeling
But some gentle thoughts of affection there live;
And the best of us all require something concealing,
Some heart that with smiles can forget and forgive!
Then away with the cloud from those beautiful eyes,
That brow was no home for such frowns to have met;
Oh, how could our spirits e'er hope for the skies,
If Heaven refused to Forgive and Forget?
THERE'S beauty in the deep:
The wave is bluer than the sky;
And, though the lights shine bright on high,
More softly do the sea-gems glow,
That sparkle in the depths below;
The rainbow's tints are only made
When on the waters they are laid;
And sun and moon most sweetly shine
Upon the ocean's level brine.
There's beauty in the deep.
There's music in the deep:-
It is not in the surf's rough roar,
Nor in the whispering, shelly shore,-
They are but earthly sounds, that tell
How little of the sea-nymph's shell,
That sends its loud, clear note abroad,
Or winds its softness through the flood,
Echoes through groves, with coral gay,
And dies, on spongy banks, away.
There's music in the deep.
There's quiet in the deep:—
Above, let tides and tempests rave,
And earth-born whirlwinds wake the wave;
Above, let care and fear contend
With sin and sorrow, to the end:
Here, far beneath the tainted foam
That frets above our peaceful home;
We dream in joy, and wake in love,
Nor know the rage that yells above.
There's quiet in the deep.
DRINK! drink! to whom shall we drink?
To friend or a mistress? Come, let me think!
To those who are absent, or those who are here?
To the dead that we loved, or the living still dear?
Alas! when I look, I find none of the last!
The present is barren-let's drink to the past.
Come! here's to the girl with a voice sweet and low,
The eye all of fire and the bosom of snow,
Who erewhile in the days of my youth that are fled,
Once slept on my bosom, and pillowed my head!
Would you know where to find such a delicate prize?
Go seek in yon churchyard, for there she lies.
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