LESSON CCXXIV.-THE TREASURE THAT WAXETH NOT OLD.
Oh! I have loved, in youth's fair vernal morn,
To spread imagination's wildest wing,
The sober certainties of life to scorn,
And seek the visioned realms that poets sing,—
Where Nature blushes in perennial spring,
Where streams of earthly joy exhaustless rise,
Where Youth and Beauty tread the choral ring,
And shout their raptures to the cloudless skies,
While every jovial hour on downy pinion flies.
But, ah those fairy scenes at once are fled,
Since stern experience waved her iron wand,
Broke the soft slumbers of my visioned head,
And bade me here of perfect bliss despond.
And oft have I the painful lesson conned;
When Disappointment mocked my wooing heart,
Still of its own delusion weakly fond,
And from forbidden pleasures loth to part,
Though shrinking oft beneath Correction's deepest smart.
And is there naught in mortal life, I cried,
Can sooth the sorrows of the laboring breast?
No kind recess where baffled hope may hide,
And weary Nature lull her woes to rest?
Oh! grant me, pitying Heaven, this last request,—
Since I must every loftier wish resign,
Be my few days with peace and friendship blessed;
Nor will I at my humble lot repine,
Though neither wealth, nor fame, nor luxury be mine.
Oh! give me yet, in some recluse abode,
Encircled with a faithful few, to dwell,
Where power can not oppress, nor care corrode,
Nor venomed tongues the tale of slander tell;
Oh! bear me to some solitary cell,
Beyond the reach of every human eye;
And let me bid a long and last farewell
To each alluring object 'neath the sky, .
And there in peace await my hour,-in peace to die.
"Ah vain desire!" a still small voice replied,-
"No place, no circumstance can Peace impart :
She scorns the mansion of unvanquished Pride,-
Sweet inmate of a pure and humble heart.
Take then thy station,-act thy proper part ;-
A Saviour's mercy seek,-his will perform :
His word has balm for sin's envenomed smart,
His love, diffused, thy shuddering breast shall warm 5 His power provide a shelter from the gathering storm." Oh! welcome hiding place! Oh! refuge meet
For fainting pilgrims, on this desert way!
Oh! kind Conductor of these wandering feet
Through snares and darkness, to the realms of day!
So did the Sun of Righteousness display
His healing beams; each gloomy cloud dispel:
While on the parting mist, in colors gay,
Truth's cheering bow of precious promise fell,
And Mercy's silver voice soft whispered,-" All is well."
LESSON CCXXV.-THE YOUNG MARINER'S DREAM.-Dimond
In slumbers of midnight the sailor boy lay,
His hammock swung loose at the sport of the wind;
But, watchworn and weary, his cares flew away,
And visions of happiness danced o'er his mind.
5 He dreamed of his home, of his dear native bowers,
And pleasures that waited on life's merry morn;
While memory each scene gayly covered with flowers,
And restored every rose, but secreted its thorn.
Then fancy her magical pinions spread wide,
And bade the young dreamer in ecstasy rise;—
Now far, far behind him, the green waters glide,
And the cot of his forefathers blesses his eyes.
The jassamine clambers, in flower, o'er the thatch;
And the swallow sings sweet from her nest in the wall
15 All trembling with transport, he raises the latch;
And the voices of loved ones reply to his call.
A father bends o'er him with looks of delight;
His cheek is impearled with a mother's warm tear;
And the lips of the boy in a love-kiss unite,
With those of the sister his bosom holds dear.
The heart of the sleeper beats high in his breast,
Joy quickens his pulses, his hardships seem o'er ;
And a murmur of happiness steals through his rest,—
"O God! thou hast blest me; I ask for no more."
Ah! whence is that flame which now bursts on his eye? Ah! what is that sound which now larums his ear? 'Tis the lightning's red glare, painting wrath on the sky! 'Tis the crashing of thunders, the groan of the sphere! 5 He springs from his hammock,-he flies to the deck,Amazement confronts him with images dire,
Wild winds and mad waves drive the vessel a wreck,The masts fly in splinters, the shrouds are on fire! Like mountains the billows tremendously swell:
In vain the lost wretch calls on mercy to save; Unseen hands of spirits are ringing his knell,
And the death angel flaps his broad wing o'er the wave. O sailor boy! woe to thy dream of delight!
In darkness dissolves the gay frost-work of bliss;
15 Where now is the picture that fancy touched bright,
Thy parents' fond pressure, and love's honied kiss?
O sailor boy! sailor boy! never again
Shall home, love, or kindred, thy wishes repay;
Unblessed, and unhonored, down deep in the main,
Full many a score fathom, thy frame shall decay.
No tomb shall e'er plead to remembrance for thee,
Or redeem form or fame from the merciless surge;
But the white foam of waves shall thy winding-sheet be,
And winds, in the midnight of winter, thy dirge!
25 On a bed of green sea-flower thy limbs shall be laid;
Around thy white bones the red coral shall grow;
Of thy fair, yellow locks, threads of amber be made,
And every part suit to thy mansion below.
Days, months, years, and ages, shall circle away,
And still the vast waters above thee shall roll:
Earth loses thy pattern for ever and aye;-
O sailor boy! sailor boy! peace to thy soul!
LESSON CCXXVI. GUSTAVUS VASA AND CRISTIERN.-Brooke. Crist. Tell me, Gustavus, tell me why is this, That, as a stream diverted from the banks
Of smooth obedience, thou hast drawn these men
Upon a dry unchanneled enterprise
To turn their inundation? Are the lives
Of my misguided people held so light,
That thus thou 'dst push them on the keen rebuke
Of guarded majesty; where justice waits
All awful and resistless, to assert
Th' impervious rights, the sanctitude of kings;
And blast rebellion?
Gust. Justice, sanctitude,
And rights! O patience! Rights! what rights, thou tyrant
Yes, if perdition be the rule of power,
If wrongs give right, Oh! then, supreme in mischief,
Thou wert the lord, the monarch of the world,—
10 Too narrow for thy claim. But if thou think st
That crowns are vilely propertied, like coin,
To be the means, the specialty of lust,
And sensual attribution; if thou think'st
That empire is of titled birth or blood;
15 That nature, in the proud behalf of one,
Shall disenfranchise all her lordly race,
And bow her general issue to the yoke
Of private domination; then, thou proud one,
Here know me for thy king! Howe'er be told,
20 Not claim hereditary, not the trust
Not e'en the high anointing hand of Heaven,
Can authorize oppression, give a law
For lawless power, wed faith to violation, 25 On reason build misrule, or justly bind Allegiance to injustice. Tyranny
Absolves all faith; and who invades our rights,
Howe'er his own commence, can never be
30 There is no name! Thou hast ab, ured mankind,
Dashed safety from thy bleak, unsocial side,
And waged wild war with universal nature.
Crist. Licentious traitor! thou canst talk it largely
Who made thee umpire of the rights of kings,
35 And power, prime attribute; as on thy tongue
The poise of battle lay, and arms of force
To throw defiance in the front of duty?
Look round, unruly boy! thy battle comes,
Like raw, disjointed, mustering feeble wrath,
40 A war of waters, borne against a rock
Of our firm continent, to fume, and chafe,
And shiver in the toil.
I come empowered and strengthened in thy weakness.
For though the structure of a tyrant's throne
Rise on the necks of half the suffering world,
Fear trembles in the cement; prayers, and tears,
And secret curses, sap its mouldering base,
5 And steal the pillars of allegiance from it;
Then let a single arm but dare the sway,
Headlong it turns, and drives upon destruction.
Crist. Profane, and alien to the love of Heaven!
Art thou still hardened to the wrath divine,
10 That hangs o'er thy rebellion? Know'st thou not
Thou art at enmity with grace, cast out,
Made an anathema, a curse enrolled
Among the faithful, thou and thy adherents,
Shorn from our holy church, and offered up
15 As sacred to perdition?
When such as thou, with sacrilegious hand,
Seize on the apostolic key of heaven,
It then becomes a tool for crafty knaves
20 To shut out virtue, and unfold those gates
That Heaven itself had barred against the lusts
Of avarice and ambition. Soft and sweet,
As looks of charity or voice of lambs
That bleat upon the mountain, are the words
25 Of Christian meekness! mission all divine!
The law of love, sole mandate. But your gall,
Ye Swedish prelacy, your gall hath turned
The words of sweet but undigested peace,
To wrath and bitterness. Ye hallowed men,
30 In whom vice sanctifies, whose precepts teach
Zeal without truth, religion without virtue;
Sacked towns, and midnight howlings, through the realm
Receive your sanction! Oh! 't is glorious mischief!
When vice turns holy, puts religion on,
35 Assumes the robe pontifical, the eye
Of saintly elevation, blesseth sin,
And makes the seal of sweet offended Heaven
A sign of blood.
Crist. No more of this!
40 Gustavus, wouldst thou yet return to grace, And hold thy motions in the sphere of duty, Acceptance might be found.
Gust. Imperial spoiler !
Give me my father, give me back my kindred,
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