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What joys ecstatic must thou there inherit,
And realise to die but wordless gain:
Basking for ever in the genial ray
Of the grand Fountain of eternal day.

Buoyant and free, from age to age aspiring,
Vieing to climb perfection's topless tree;
Nerved with immortal vigour and untiring,
To reach where angels once were wont to be:
While heaven's behests with zeal the bosom firing
On missions vast sent through eternity,

To regions near, or far transcending thought,
And realms the seraph's wing hath traversed not.

Oh bliss unmingled beyond bounds or measure!
Oh brilliant destiny, who would recall
Or wrench thy sainted spirit from such treasure,
Replacing it beneath the iron thrall

Of this vile, sin-polluted world. With pleasure
Adieu, my first, last, best; the distance small
Betwixt us, and the fondled wish be mine
To meet in that elysium divine.

TO A SNOWDROP.

GAIN the opening year I sing, Hail, lovely harbinger of Spring! Emerging from thy tomb again, Precursor of the floral train, Thou seem'st impatient of delay, Come, welcome stranger, come away. Thy spotless robes of snowy white, How doubly grateful to the sight! What intellect, what art, and power Are miniatured in thee, sweet flower, To all proclaiming, as they shine, An Artist glorious and divine ? Unlike the rude attempts of man, The closer we thy structure scan, The more thy symmetry and grace, And native loveliness, we trace, And feel the soul instinctive rise With admiration and surprise At thy revival from the dust, O hallowed emblem of the just! In robes unborrowed though attired, And by no toil of thine acquired. Yet, ah! fair gem, thy charms deride The garish glare of human pride: And how obscure thou lov'st to bloom,

With drooping head, here o'er thy tomb!

Young, unassuming modest birth,
Bright image of retiring worth,
All truly may behold in thee
A model of humility.

But, ah! frail evanescent thing,
Thy mortal hour is on the wing;
Soon shalt thou languish and decay,
And all thy sweetness pass away;
The very spot where thou hast blown,
Shall be forgotten and unknown;
Thy room shall others soon supply,
Like thee to flourish, fade, and die.
Alas! sad prototype of fate

Of man, e'en in his best estate-
How brief, how fleeting his career!
What are we? Wandering exiles here.
A few more petty ills endured,
A few more tears of sorrow poured,
Then vain to tarry here our trust;
Forth flies the fiat, “dust to dust;"
Whate'er in life has been our lot-
All then is gone, and all forgot;
But though thou here a wreck must fall,
Yet in the grave how short thy thrall!
Spring shall again to thee return,

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But when shall Spring dawn on the urn? There must its tenants slumbering lie Till Time, and Death, and nature die— Till the last trumpet, loud and shrill, Shall rouse us with its awful thrill.

A FEW SHORT YEARS.

FEW short years, and then, As dew-drops from the spray, So from the ranks of men, Anon, we pass away.

Bright type of our career,
See yon Ephemera play:
How brief our flutter here,
Born but to pass away.

What matters here our lot—
A crown, or crust, to-day:
To-morrow, gone, forgot,

Doomed but to pass away.

Though thorns our path bestrew,
As here we onward stray,

Though ills on ills renew,

'Tis but to pass away.

What honour, fame, and power
The gewgaws that betray

The syrens of an hour,

That dream like pass away,

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LONE! thrice welcome now, devout Reflection,
My weary soul with gladness bids thee, hail;

Her nurse benign, and succour in dejection,
When hopes but mock, and fairest prospects fail;

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