Smooth meads, and lawns, that glow with varying
Of dew-bespangled leaves and blossoms bright,
Hence!-vanish from my sight!
Delusive pictures, unsubstantial shows!
My soul, absorbed, one only Being knows,
Of all perceptions one abundant source,
Whence every object every moment flows.
Suns hence derive their force,
Hence planets learn their course :—
But suns and fading worlds I view no more;
God only I perceive-God only I adore.
'T WAS summer, and a Sabbath eve,
And balmy was the air;
I saw a sight that made me grieve,
And yet the sight was fair:
Within a little coffin lay
Two lifeless babes as sweet as May.
Like waxen dolls which children dress,
The little bodies were;
A look of placid happiness
Did on each face appear:
And in the coffin short and wide,
They lay together, side by side.
A rose-bud nearly closed I found
Each little hand within;
And many a pink was strow'd around
With sprigs of jessamine:
And yet the flowers that round them lay
Were not to me more fair than they.
Their mother, as a lily pale,
Sat by them on the bed;
And bending o'er them told her tale;
And many a tear she shed:
Yet oft she cried amidst her pain,
"My babes and I shall meet again."
THE CHRISTIAN MOURNER'S PROSPECT OF DEATH.
THE hour, the hour, the parting hour,
That takes from this dark world its power,
And lays at once the thorn and flower
On the same withering bier, my soul!
The hour that ends all earthly woes,
And gives the wearied soul repose,-
How soft, how sweet, that last, long close
Of mortal hope and fear, my soul !
How sweet, while on this broken lyre
The melodies of time expire,
To feel it strung with chords of fire,
To praise the immortal One, my soul!
And while our farewell tears we pour
To those we leave on this cold shore,
To feel that we shall weep no more,
Nor dwell alone in heaven, my soul!
How sweet, while waning fast away
The stars of this dim world decay,
To see, prophetic of the day,
The golden dawn arise, my soul!
To feel we only sleep to rise
In sunnier lands and fairer skies,
To bind again our broken ties
In ever-living love, my soul!
The hour, the hour, so pure and calm,
That bathes the wounded soul in balm,
And round the pale brow twines the palm,
That shuns this wintry clime, my soul!
The hour that draws o'er earth and all
Its briars and blooms the mortal pall,--
How soft, how sweet, that evening-fall
Of fear, and grief, and time, my soul!
THEN never tear shall fall,
The heart shall ne'er be cold;
And life's rich tree shall teem for all
With fruit more "golden far than gold."
Then those we lost below
Once more we shall infold;
And there, with eyes undimm'd by wo,
The burning throne of God behold.
There the pure sun-bow glows,
Unaided by the shower;
No thorn attends the Elysian rose,
No shadow marks the blissful hour.
There roll the streams of love,
Beyond death's wintry power!
In light and song for aye they move,
By many a bless'd immortal's bower.
THOU art, O God, the life and light
Of all this wondrous world we see;
Its glow by day, its smile by night,
Are but reflections caught from thee:
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine.
When day with farewell beam delays,
Among the opening clouds of even,
And we can almost think we gaze
Through golden vistas into heaven,
Those hues that mark the sun's decline,
So soft, so radiant, Lord, are thine.
When night, with wings of stormy gloom,
O'ershadows all the earth and skies,
Like some dark beauteous bird, whose plume
Is sparkling with a thousand eyes,
That sacred gloom, those fires divine,
So grand, so countless, Lord, are thine.
When youthful spring around us breathes,
Thy Spirit warms her fragrant sigh,
And every flower the summer wreathes
Is born beneath that kindling eye:
Where'er we turn, thy glories shine,
And all things fair and bright are thine.
THE scene was more beautiful far, to my eye,
Than if day in its pride had array'd it:
The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure arch'd sky
Look'd pure as the Spirit that made it.
The murmur arose, as I silently gazed
On the shadowy waves' playful motion, From the dim distant isle till the beacon-fire blazed, Like a star in the midst of the ocean.
No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast
Was heard in his wildly breathed numbers;
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers.
I sigh'd as I look'd from the hill's gentle slope;
And hush'd was the billows' commotion;
And I thought that the beacon look'd lovely as hope,
The star of life's tremulous ocean.
The time is long past, and the scene is afar,
Yet, when my head rests on its pillow,
Will memory sometimes rekindle the star
That blazed on the breast of the billow.
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