They sleep from their " father land" far,
Where they sought in stern vengeance their foes,
Where they mocked the fierce havoc of war,
There they find their last earthly repose.
They sleep the sweet sleep of the brave!
O'er their sod the fresh laurel shall bloom;
And the cypress shall mournfully wave,
As the night-wind sweeps over their tomb.
They sleep but their memory lives;
They are dead-but the voice of their fame
Through the world immortality gives,
And for ever shall hallow their name!
BUT can the wandering sailor pleasure find,
Who leaves the sweets of wedded love behind?
'Tis midnight deep, 'tis calm, 'tis gloom around,
A silent horror stills the vast profound;
Though day's bright orb beneath the wave retires,
The sultry night still glows with sickly fires.
He treads the deck, immersed in anxious cares,
In climes remote forbodes the lapse of years.
The watch is out; no cooling draught supplied,
Sad, from th' untasted fare he turns aside.
Yet, here, shall Memory o'er his temples fling
The balmy dew drops, from her seraph wing:
Who strikes the lyre? He hears in thought again
The well known voice, and soft, enchanting strain.
'Tis her he loves! With what serene delight
Her image gilds the cheerless noon of night!
In contemplation sweet, 'tis his to trace
Each look, each step, each soul-pervading grace,
That, first beheld in life's endearing prime,
Still gently dances down the stream of time;
Still the warm sigh he feels, still hears the yow
Of all that chaste affection dared allow;
And dwells on scenes endeared of love and truth,
In the fond glow of renovated youth.-
Thus he, while near his humbler shipmate lies,
In sweetest sleep already closed his eyes,
The meed of faithful toil: his peaceful rest
No vain regrets annoy, no cares molest;
But, ever near to guiltless slumbers found,
The friendly white winged genii flit around,
And o'er his pendent couch, in visions bright,
Unfold the soothing scenes of past delight.
His ventures lucky and his voyage o'er,
First of the naval train he springs to shore;
Awhile the cares of restless Ocean yields
For tranquil hamlet and sequestered fields;
Far from the public road, diverging, treads
The footpath o'er the hill that homeward leads;
While melting music wakes from every spray,
To the mild glories of declining day;
Then, winding slowly up, the summit gains,
And looks complacent o'er the well-known plains.
His native village stretching wide beneath,
Its deep blue smoke, condensed by Autumn's breath;
The grey spire, breaking from the yew's dark shade,
The mill stream glittering through the woodland glade;
Each cherished object fancy loves to trace,
Calls like a friend-he hies with quickened pace;
The spire, the mill, the brook, the mead, the groves,
All seem dependant on the home he loves.
Yet, by the aged oak, whose branches spread
Athwart his path impenetrable shade,
Whose acorns, sown long since in infant play,
Now saplings wave, with lighter foliage gay,
And shade the cot, where, 'mid surrounding dells,
Counting the hours, his blameless consort dwells,
A moment rests, essaying to controul
The fond emotions that pervade his soul,
While, from the porch, which fragrant briars inclosé,
Where pyracanthus, twined with jasmine, glows,
The sweets that bloom around his home he hails,
And feels attraction wafted in the gales;
Then views, the fence on tiptoe peeping o'er,
A cherub group, that cull th' autumnal store:
Watching their tasks, the partner of his breast,
Her lovely cheek with pensive smile imprest,"
Yet warmly beaming, 'mid the setting blaze,
The flush of love upon his raptured gaze.
HE who hath bent him o'er the dead,
Ere the first day of death is fled;
The first dark day of nothingness,
The last of danger and distress;
(Before Decay's effacing fingers
Have swept the line where beauty lingers,)
And marked the mild angelic air-
The rapture of repose that's there :-
The fix'd, yet tender traits that streak
The languor of the placid cheek,
And but for that sad shrouded eye,
That fires not-wins not-weeps not-now,
And but for that chill, changeless brow,
Whose touch thrills with mortality,
And curdles to the gazer's heart,
As if to him it would impart
The doom he dreads, yet dweils upon ;—
Yes, but for these, and these alone,
Some moments-aye-one treacherous hour,
He still might doubt the tyrant's power,
So fair-so calm-so softly sealed
The first-last look-by death revealed!
NAY, William, nay, not so; the changeful year
In all its due successions to my sight
Presents but varied beauties, transient all,
All in their season good. These fading leaves
That with their rich variety of hues
Make yonder forest in the slanting sun
So beautiful, in you awake the thought
Of winter, cold, drear winter, when these trees
Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch
Its bare brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread
Its colours to the day, and not a bird
Carol its joyance,-but all nature wear
One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate,
To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike.
To me their many coloured beauties speak
Of times of merriment and festival,,
The year's best holiday: I call to mind
The school-boy days, when in the falling leaves
I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign
Of coming Christmas, when at morn I took
My wooden kalendar, and counting up
Once more its often-told account, smooth'd off
Each day with more delight the daily notch.
To you the beauties of the autumnal year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit broke,
Bending beneath the burden of his years,
Sense-dull'd and fretful," full of aches and pains,”**
Yet clinging still to life. To me they show-
The calm decay of nature, when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy
That makes old age look lovely. All to you
Is dark and cheerless; you in this fair world
See some destroying principle abroad,
Air, earth, and water, full of living things
Each on the other preying; and the ways
Of man, a strange perplexing labyrinth,
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each,
Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope
That should in death bring comfort. Oh my friend
That thy faith were as mine! that thou couldst see
Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction; couldst behold
The strifes and tumults of this troubled world
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn thro' this night of tempest! all things then
Would minister to joy; then should thine heart
Be healed and harmonized, and thou shouldst feel
God, always, every-where, and all in all.
|