120) SONG. FOR MUSIC. A LAKE and a fairy boat To sail in the moonlight clear,- From the dragons that watch us here! Thy gown should be snow-white silk, Red rubies should deck thy hands, And diamonds should be thy dow'rBut fairies have broke their wands, And wishing has lost its pow'r! ODE.-AUTUMN. I. I saw old Autumn in the misty morn II. Where are the songs of Summer ?—With the sun, Oping the dusky eyelids of the south, Till shade and silence waken up as one, And Morning sings with a warm odorous mouth. Undazzled at noon-day, And tear with horny beak their lustrous eyes. III. Where are the blooms of summer?-In the west, Where is the pride of Summer,-the green prime,— Trembling, and one upon the old oak tree! - Where is the Dryad's immortality?— Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, Or wearing the long gloomy Winter through In the smooth holly's green eternity. IV. The squirrel gloats on his accomplish'd hoard, And honey bees have stor'd The sweets of Summer in their luscious cells; And sighs her tearful spells Amongst the sunless shadows of the plain. Upon a mossy stone, She sits and reckons up the dead and gone With the last leaves for a love-rosary, Whilst all the wither'd world looks drearily, V. 0 go and sit with her, and be o'ershaded If only for the rose that died,-whose doom BALLAD. SPRING it is cheery, Winter is dreary, Green leaves hang, but the brown must fly; When he's forsaken, Wither'd and shaken, What can an old man do but die? Love will not clip him, Maids will not lip him, Maud and Marian pass him by; Youth it is sunny, Age has no honey,— What can an old man do but die? June it was jolly, O for its folly! A dancing leg and a laughing eye; Youth may be silly, Wisdom is chilly, What can an old man do but die? Friends they are scanty, Beggars are plenty, If he has followers, I know why; |