By childhood's love-too bright a bloom to die! O'er her worn spirit shed, O fairest, holiest Dead! The Faith, Trust, Light, of Immortality! MY OWN FIRESIDE. BY ALARIC A. WATTS. LET others seek for empty joys, "Twixt book and lute, the hours divide; My own Fireside! Those simple words And fill with tears of joy my eyes! A gentle form is near me now; A small white hand is clasp'd in mine; I gaze upon her placid brow, And ask what joys can equal thine! In sleep his mother's eyes doth hide;- What care I for the sullen roar Of winds without, that ravage earth; It doth but bid me prize the more, The shelter of thy hallow'd hearth ;To thoughts of quiet bliss give birth: Then let the churlish tempest chide, It cannot check the blameless mirth That glads my own Fireside! My refuge ever from the storm Of this world's passion, strife, and care; Thy precincts are a charmed ring, Where no harsh feeling dares intrude; Where life's vexations lose their sting; Where even grief is half subdued: And Peace, the halcyon, loves to brood. Then, let the pamper'd fool deride, I'll pay my debt of gratitude To thee-my own Fireside! Shrine of my household deities! Fair scene of my home's unsullied joys! To thee my burthen'd spirit flies, When fortune frowns, or care annoys: Thine is the bliss that never cloys; The smile whose truth hath oft been tried; What, then, are this world's tinsel toys To thee-my own Fireside! Oh, may the yearnings, fond and sweet, My own-MY OWN FIRESIDE! THE FROSTED TREES. WHAT strange enchantment meets my view, Or am I borne to regions new To see the glories there? Last eve when sunset fill'd the sky And sleepy mists came down to lie But now the scene is changed, and all The trees, last eve so straight and tall, And streams of living daylight fall The silvery arches through. The boughs are strung with glittering pearls, As dewdrops bright and bland, And there they gleam in silvery curls, Like gems of Samarcand, Seeming in wild fantastic whirls The work of fairy land. Each branch stoops meekly with the weight, And in the light breeze swerves, As if some viewless angel sate Upon its graceful curves, And made the fibres spring elate, Oh! I could dream the robe of heaven, From the sky at silent even, For the morning's glorious show. THE BUGLE. BY GRENVILLE MELLEN. But still the dingle's hollow throat LADY OF THE LAKE. OH! wild enchanting horn! Whose music up the deep and dewy air Swells to the clouds, and calls on Echo there, Till a new melody is born. Wake, wake again, the night Is bending from her throne of beauty down, Night, at its pulseless noon! When the far voice of waters mourns in song, And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long, Barks at the melancholy moon. Hark! how it sweeps away, Soaring and dying on the silent sky, As if some sprite of sound went wandering by, With lone halloo and roundelay! Swell, swell in glory out! Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart, And my stirr'd spirit hears thee with a start, As boyhood's old remember'd shout. Oh! have ye heard that peal, From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements, Or from the guarded field and warrior tents, Like some near breath around you steal? Or have ye in the roar Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise, Shriller than eagle's clamour, to the skies, Where wings and tempests never soar? Go, go-no other sound, No music that of air or earth is born, |