Yet oft before his infant eyes would run
Such forms as glitter in the Muse's ray,
With orient hues unborrow'd of the sun :
Yet shall he mount, and keep his distant way
Beyond the limits of a vulgar fate,—
Beneath the good how far-but far above the great.
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language. For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart,—
Go forth unto the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice-
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course. Nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, and be resolv'd to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements;
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone; nor could'st thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world—with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre! The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty; and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadow green; and, pour'd round all
Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man.
The planets, all the infinite host of heav'n,
Are shining as the sad abodes of death,
Thro' the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce;
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save of his own dashings; yet,—the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone!
So shalt thou rest! And what if thou shalt fall Unnotic'd by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away,-the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant, in the smiles
And beauty of its innocence cut off-
Shall, one by one, be gather'd to thy side,
By those who in their turn shall follow them!
So live, that, when thy summons comes to join The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourg'd to his dungeon; but, sustain'd and sooth'd
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams!
THE CHARMS OF HOPE.-CAMPBell,
AT summer eve, when Heaven's ethereal bow Spans with bright arch the glittering hills below, Why to yon mountains turns the musing eye, Whose sunbright summit mingles with the sky? Why do those cliffs of shadowy tint appear More sweet than all the landscape smiling near? 'Tis distance lends enchantment to the view, And robes the mountain in its azure hue,
Thus, with delight, we linger to survey
The promised joys of life's unmeasured way;
Thus, from afar, each dim-discovered scene
More pleasing seems than all the past have been,
And every form, that Fancy can repair
From dark oblivion, glows divinely there.
What potent spirit guides the raptured eye
To pierce the shades of dim futurity ?
Can Wisdom lend, with all her heavenly power,
The pledge of Joy's anticipated hour?
Ah, no! she darkly sees the fate of man-
Her dim horizon bounded to a span;
Or, if she hold a pleasure to the view,
'Tis Nature pictured too severely true.
With thee, sweet Hope! resides the heavenly light,
That pours remotest rapture on the sight:
Thine is the charm of life's bewilder'd way,
That calls each slumbering passion into play.
Waked by thy touch, I see the sister band,
On tiptoe watching, start at thy command,
And fly where'er thy mandate bids them steer,
To Pleasure's path, or Glory's bright career.
Primeval Hope, the Aönian Muses say When Man and Nature mourned their first decay,--When every form of death, and every woe, Shot from malignant stars to earth below,― When Murder bared her arm, and rampant War Yoked the red dragons of his iron car,When Peace and Mercy, banish'd from the plain, Sprung on the viewless winds to Heaven again,— All, all forsook the friendless, guilty mind, But HOPE, the charmer, linger'd still behind!
Thus, while Elijah's burning wheels prepare From Carmel's heights to sweep the fields of air,
The prophet's mantle, ere his flight began,
Dropt on the world—a sacred gift to man!
Auspicious HOPE! in thy sweet garden grow Wreaths for each toil, a charm for every woe; Won by their sweets, in Nature's languid hour, The way-worn pilgrim seeks thy summer bower; There, as the wild bee murmurs on the wing, What peaceful dreams thy handmaid spirits bring!
Angel of life! thy glittering wings explore
Earth's loneliest bounds, and Ocean's wildest shore.
Lo! to the wintry winds the pilot yields
His bark careering o'er unfathom'd fields;
Now on Atlantic waves he rides afar,
Where Andes, giant of the western star,
With meteor-standard to the winds unfurl'd,
Looks from his throne of clouds, o'er half the world!
Now far he sweeps, where scarce a summer smiles,
On Behring's rocks, or Greenland's naked isles;
Cold on his midnight watch, the breezes blow,
From wastes that slumber in eternal snow;
And waft, across the wave's tumultuous roar,
The wolf's long howl from Oonalaska's shore.
Poor child of danger, nursling of the storm,
Sad are the woes that wreck thy manly form!
Rocks, waves, and winds, the shatter'd bark delay
Thy heart is sad, thy home is far away.
But HOPE can here her moonlight vigils keep,
And sing to charm the spirit of the deep:
Swift as yon streamer lights the starry pole,
Her visions warm the watchman's pensive soul;
His native hills, that rise in happier climes,
The grot that heard his song of other times,
His cottage home, his bark of slender sail,
His glassy lake, and broomwood-blossom'd vale,
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