But these have angels never known;
Unvex'd felicity their lot;

The sea of glass before the throne,

Storm, lightning, shipwreck, visit not; Our tides, beneath the changing moon, Are soon appeased, are troubled soon.

Well, I would bear what all have borne,
Live my few years, and fill my place
O'er old and young affections mourn,
Rent one by one from my embrace,
Till suffering ends, and I have done
With every thing beneath the sun,

Whence came I? - Memory cannot say ; What am I?-Knowledge will not show; Bound whither?-Ah! away, away,

Far as eternity can go:—

Thy love to win, thy wrath to flee,
O GOD! thyself my teacher be,

1823.

WORMS AND FLOWERS.

YOU'RE spinning for my lady, worm!
Silk garments for the fair;
You're spinning rainbows for a form
More beautiful than air,
When air is bright with sun-beams,
And morning mists arise

From woody vales and mountain streams
To blue autumnal skies.

You're spinning for my lady, flower!
You're training for my love,
The glory of her summer-bower,
While skylarks soar above:
Go, twine her locks with rose-buds,
Or breathe upon her breast,
While zephyrs curl the water-floods
And rock the halcyon's nest.

But, oh! there is another worm
Ere long will visit her,
And revel on her lovely form,
In the dark sepulchre:

Yet from that sepulchre shall spring
A flower as sweet as this;

Hard by the nightingale shall sing,
Soft winds its petals kiss.

Frail emblems of frail beauty, ye!
In beauty who would trust?
Since all that charms the eye must be
Consign'd to worms and dust:

Yet like the flower that decks her tomb,
Her spirit shall quit the sod,
To shine in amaranthine bloom,
Fast by the throne of GOD.

1834.

THE RECLUSE.

A FOUNTAIN issuing into light,
Before a marble palace, threw
To heaven its column, pure and bright,
Returning thence in showers of dew;
But soon a humbler course it took,
And glid away a nameless brook.

Flowers on its grassy margin sprang,

Flies o'er its eddying surface play'd, Birds 'midst the alder-branches sang,

Flocks through the verdant meadows stray'd; The weary there lay down to rest,

And there the halcyon built her nest.

'Twas beautiful, to stand and watch

The fountain's crystal turn to gems,

And from the sky such colours catch,
As if 'twere raining diadems;

Yet all was cold and curious art,
That charm'd the eye, but miss'd the heart.

Dearer to me the little stream,

Whose unimprison'd waters run,

Wild as the changes of a dream,

By rock and glen, through shade and sun;

Its lovely links had power to bind
In welcome chains my wandering mind.

So thought I, when I saw the face
By happy portraiture reveal'd,
Of one, adorn'd with every grace,

-Her name and date from me conceal'd,

But not her story;—she had been
The pride of many a splendid scene.

She cast her glory round a court,
And frolick'd in the gayest ring,
Where fashion's high-born minions sport,
Like sparkling fire-flies on the wing;
But thence, when love had touch'd her soul,
To nature and to truth she stole.

From din, and pageantry, and strife,

Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains, She treads the paths of lowly life,

Yet in a bosom-circle reigns,

No fountain scattering diamond showers,
But the sweet streamlet watering flowers.

1829.