THE CHARMED PICTURE.
Look on me thus, when sudden glee
Bears my quick heart along,
On wings that struggle to be free,
As bursts of skylark song.
In vain, in vain!-too soon are felt
The wounds they cannot flee;
Better in childlike tears to melt,
Pouring my soul on thee!
Sweet face that o'er my childhood shone,
Whence is thy power of change,
Thus ever shadowing back my own,
The rapid and the strange?
Whence are they charm'd-those earnest eyes?
-I know the mystery well!
In mine own trembling bosom lies
The spirit of the spell!
Of Memory, Conscience, Love, 'tis born-
Oh! change no longer, thou!
For ever be the blessing worn
On thy pure thoughtful brow!
One struggle more and I am free. - BYRON.
LEAVE me, oh! leave me! - unto all below
Thy presence binds me with too deep a spell;
Thou makest those mortal regions, whence I go,
Too mighty in their loveliness — farewell,
That I may part in peace!
Leave me!thy footstep, with its lightest sound,
The very shadow of thy waving hair,
Wakes in my soul a feeling too profound,
Too strong for aught that loves and dies, to bear-
Oh! bid the conflict cease!
I hear thy whisper-and the warm tears gush
Into mine eyes, the quick pulse thrills my heart;
Thou bid'st the peace, the reverential hush,
The still submission, from my thoughts depart;
Dear one! this must not be.
The past looks on me from thy mournful eye,
The beauty of our free and vernal days;
Our communings with sea, and hill, and sky-
Oh! take that bright world from my spirit's gaze!
Thou art all earth to me!
Shut out the sunshine from my dying room,
The jasmine's breath, the murmur of the bee;
Let not the joy of bird-notes pierce the gloom!
They speak of love, of summer, and of thee,
Too much-and death is here!
Doth our own spring make happy music now,
From the old beach-roots flashing into day?
Are the pure lilies imaged in its flow?
Alas! vain thoughts! that fondly thus can stray
From the dread hour so near!
If I could but draw courage from the light
Of thy clear eye, that ever shone to bless!
Not now! 't will not be now!-my aching sight
Drinks from that fount a flood of tenderness,
Bearing all strength away!
Leave me! thou com'st between my heart and Heaven!
I would be still, in voiceless prayer to die!
Why must our souls thus love, and then be riven? -Return! thy parting 'wakes mine agony!
THE MESSAGE TO THE DEAD."
THOU'RT passing hence, my brother!
Oh! my earliest friend, farewell!
Thou'rt leaving me, without thy voice,
In a lonely home to dwell;
And from the hills, and from the hearth,
And from the household-tree,
With thee departs the lingering mirth,
The brightness goes with thee.
But thou, my friend, my brother!
Thou'rt speeding to the shore
Where the dirge-like tone of parting words
Shall smite the soul no more!
And thou wilt see our holy dead,
The lost on earth and main ;
Into the sheaf of kindred hearts,
Thou wilt be bound again!
Tell, then, our friend of boyhood,
That yet his name is heard
On the blue mountains, whence his youth
Pass'd like a swift bright bird.
"Messages from the living to the dead are not uncommon in the Highlands. The Gael have such a ceaseless consciousness of immortality, that their departed friends are considered as merely absent for a time, and permitted to relieve the hours of separation by occasional intercourse with the objects of their earliest affections."-See the notes to Mrs. Brunton's Works.
The light of his exulting brow,
The visions of his glee,
Are on me still-Oh! still I trust
That smile again to see.
And tell our fair young sister,
The rose cut down in spring,
That yet my gushing soul is fill'd
With lays she loved to sing,
Her soft, deep eyes look through my dreams,
Tender and sadly sweet;-
Tell her my heart within me burns
Once more that gaze to meet !
And tell our white-hair'd father,
That in the paths he trode,
The child he loved, the last on earth,
Yet walks and worships God.
Say, that his last fond blessing yet
Rests on my soul like dew,
And by its hallowing might I trust
Once more his face to view.
And tell our gentle mother,
That on her grave I pour
The sorrows of my spirit forth,
As on her breast of yore.
Happy thou art that soon, how soon,
Our good and bright will see!-
Oh! brother, brother! may I dwell,
Ere long, with them and thee!
VOL. VI.
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