If, when this dust to dust restored, But, if this fleeting spirit share With clay the grave's eternal bed, To Thee I breathe my humble strain, And hope, my God, to thee again FROM THE PORTUGUESE. IN moments to delight devoted, "My life!" with tend'rest tone, you cry: Dear words! on which my heart had doted, If youth could neither fade nor die. To death even hours like these must roll. Ah! then repeat those accents never, Or change "my life!" into "my soul!" Which, like my love, exists for ever. CHURCHILL'S GRAVE. A FACT LITERALLY RENDERed. I STOOD beside the grave of him who blazed The humblest of all sepulchres, and gazed Of which we are but dreamers; - as he caught Thus spoke he, "I believe the man of whom You wot, who lies in this selected tomb, Was a most famous writer in his day, And therefore travellers step from out their way To pay him honor, and myself whate'er Your honor pleases," then most pleased I shook From out my pocket's avaricious nook Some certain coins of silver, which as 't were In which there was Obscurity and Fame, STANZAS TO THE RIVER PO. RIVER, that rollest by the ancient walls, What if thy deep and ample stream should be What do I say - - a mirror of my heart? Are not thy waters sweeping, dark and strong? Such as my feelings were and are, thou art; And such as thou art were my passions long. Time may have somewhat tamed them, - not for ever, Thou overflow'st thy banks, and not for aye Thy bosom overboils, congenial river! Thy floods subside, and mine have sunk away. But left long wrecks behind, and now again, The current I behold will sweep beneath Her native walls and murmur at her feet; She will look on thee, I have looked on thee, Full of that thought; and from that moment, ne'er Thy waters could I dream of, name, or see, Without the inseparable sigh for her; Her bright eyes will be imaged in thy stream, - That happy wave repass me in its flow! The wave that bears my tears returns no more: But that which keepeth us apart is not Distance, nor depth of wave, nor space of earth, But the distraction of a various lot, As various as the climates of our birth. A stranger loves the lady of the land, Born far beyond the mountains, but his blood Is all meridian, as if never fanned By the bleak wind that chills the polar flood. My blood is all meridian; were it not, I had not left my clime, nor should I be, In spite of tortures ne'er to be forgot, A slave again of love, at least of thee. "Tis vain to struggle let me perish young -- Live as I lived, and love as I have loved; To dust if I return, from dust I sprung, A LOVE-SONG. REMIND me not, remind me not, Of those beloved, those vanished hours, Hours that may never be forgot, |