Page images
PDF
EPUB

THE TREASURES OF THE DEEP.

BY MRS. HEMANS.

WHAT hid'st thou in thy treasure-caves and cells? Thou hollow-sounding and mysterious Main! Pale glist'ning pearls, and rainbow-colour'd shells, Bright things which gleam unreck'd of and in vain. Keep, keep thy riches, melancholy sea!

We ask not such from thee.

Yet more, the Depths have more !-What wealth untold,

Far down, and shining through their stillness, lies! Thou hast the starry gems, the burning gold, Won from ten thousand royal Argosies.

Sweep o'er thy spoils, thou wild and wrathful Main! Earth claims not these again!

Yet more, the Depths have more!―Thy waves have roll'd

Above the cities of a world gone by! Sand hath fill'd up the palaces of old,

Sea-weed o'ergrown the halls of revelry! Dash o'er them, Ocean! in thy scornful play, Man yields them to decay!

Yet more! the Billows and the Depths have more!
High hearts and brave are gather'd to thy breast!
They hear not now the booming waters roar,-
The battle-thunders will not break their rest.
Keep thy red gold and gems, thou stormy grave!—
Give back the true and brave!

Give back the lost and lovely!-Those for whom The place was kept at board and hearth so long; The prayer went up through midnight's breathless gloom,

And the vain yearning woke 'midst festal song! Hold fast thy buried isles, thy towers o'erthrown, -But all is not thine own!

THE RETURN FROM INDIA.

I CAME, but they had passed away,
The fair in form, the pure in mind;
And like a stricken deer I stray,

Where all are strange, and none are kind;
Kind to the worn, and wearied soul,
That pants, that struggles for repose:
O! that my steps had reach'd the goal
Where earthly sighs and sorrows close.

Years have pass'd o'er me, like a dream,
That leaves no trace on memory's page:
I look around me, and I seem

Some relic of a former age.
Alone, as in a stranger-clime,

Where stranger-voices mock my ear; I mark the lagging course of time, Without a wish-a hope—a fear!

Yet I had hopes—and they are fled;
And I had fears were all too true:
My wishes too!-but they are dead,
And what have I with life to do?

'Tis but to bear a weary load,
I may not, dare not cast away;
To sigh for one small, still abode,
Where I may sleep as sweet as they :

As they, the loveliest of their race,
Whose grassy tombs my sorrows steep;
Whose worth my soul delights to trace—
Whose very loss 'tis sweet to weep;
To weep beneath the silent moon,

With none to chide, to hear, to see.
Life can bestow no dearer boon

On one whom death disdains to free.

I leave a world that knows me not,
To hold communion with the dead;
And fancy consecrates the spot,

Where fancy's softest dreams are shed.
I see each shade, all silvery white—
I hear each spirit's melting sigh;
I turn to clasp those forms of light,
And the pale morning chills my eye.

But soon the last dim morn shall rise,
The lamp of life burns feebly now,—
When stranger hands shall close my eyes,
And smooth my cold and dewy brow.
Unknown I lived-so let me die;

Nor stone, nor monumental cross,
Tell where his nameless ashes lie,

Who sigh'd for gold, and found it dross.

CHILDE HAROLD'S LAST PILGRIMAGE.

WRITTEN AFER HAVING READ AN ACCOUNT OF HIS

FUNERAL.

BY THE REV. W. L. BOWLES.

SO ENDS CHILDE HAROLD HIS LAST PILGRIMAGE!
Above the Malian surge he stood, and cried
"LIBERTY!" and the shores from age to age
Renown'd, and Sparta's woods and rocks, replied,
"Liberty !" but a Spectre, at his side,

Stood, mocking-and its dart uplifting high
Smote him-he sunk to earth in life's fair pride;
While Sparta's rocks echo'd a fainter cry,

And old flissus sigh’d—“ die, generous Exile, die !”

I will not ask sad Pity to deplore

His wayward errors, who thus early died:
Still less, CHILDE HAROLD-now, thou art no more,
Will I speak aught of genius misapplied,
Or the past shadows of thy spleen or pride;
But I will bid the' Arcadian cypress wave,
And pluck the laurel from Peneus' side,
And pray thy Spirit may such quiet have,
That not one thought unkind be murmur'd o'er thy
grave.

SO ENDS CHILDE HAROLD HIS LAST PILGRIMAGE!
Ends in that region-in that land renown'd,
Whose mighty genius lives in Glory's page,
Upon the Muses's consecrated ground,

CHILDE HAROLD'S LAST PILGRIMAGE.

131

His pale cheek fading, where his brows were bound With their unfading wreath! I will not call

*

The Nymphs from Pindus' piny shades profound, But strew some flowers upon thy sable pall, And follow to the grave a Briton's funeral.

Slow move the plumed hearse-the mourning train-
I mark the long procession with a sigh,
Silently passing to that village fane,

Where, Harold, thy forefathers mouldering lie;
Where sleeps that MOTHER, who with tearful eye,
Pondering the fortunes of thine onward road,
Hung o'er the slumbers of thy infancy :

Who here, released from every human load, Receives her long-lost child to the same calm abode.

Bursting Death's silence, could THAT MOTHER speak When first the earth was heap'd upon thy head, In thrilling, but with hollow accents weak, She thus might give the welcome of the Dead"Rest! rest! the Passions which the heart misled, Here, all are hush'd: the murmur of Life's Sea Here is not heard: Come, to my wormy bed! When both shall wake-FATHER, REMEMBER ME! And, Oh! my SON, my SON-HAVE MERCY UPON THEE!"

* Who does not involuntarily repeat the beautiful and affecting lines from the first Idyll of Theocritus, on the death of Daphnis, when he thinks of the death of Lord Byron in Greece:

Πᾶ ποκ' ἄρ ̓ ἦσθ ̓ ὅκα Δαφνι; ἐτάκετο, πα ποια, Νύμφαι.

« PreviousContinue »