Then for a beam of joy to light In Memory's sad and wakeful eye! Or banish from the noon of night Her dreams of deeper agony. Shall song its witching cadence roll? Yea, even the tenderest air repeat, That breathed when soul was knit to soul, And heart to heart responsive beat? What visions rise! to charm, to melt! The lost, the loved, the dead, are near! Oh, hush that strain, too deeply felt! And cease that solace, too severe ! But thou serenely silent art! By heaven and love was taught to lend A milder solace to the heart, The sacred image of a friend. All is not lost! if, yet possest, To me that sweet memorial shine :- Or, gazing through luxurious tears, Melt o'er the loved departed form, She looks! she lives! this tranced hour Yes, Genius, yes! thy mimic aid A treasure to my soul has given, Where Beauty's canonized shade Smiles in the sainted hues of heaven. No spectre forms of pleasure fled, Thy soft'ning, sweet'ning tints restore; For thou canst give us back the dead, E'en in the loveliest looks they wore. Then blest be Nature's guardian Muse, Whose hand her perish'd grace redeems! Whose tablet of a thousand hues The mirror of creation seems. From Love began thy high descent; And lovers, charm'd by gifts of thine, Shall bless thee mutely eloquent, And call thee brightest of the Nine! DRINKING-SONG OF MUNICH. SWEET Iser! were thy sunny realm And flowery gardens mine, Thy waters I would shade with elm To prop the tender vine: My golden flagons I would fill With rosy draughts from every hill; And under every myrtle bower, My gay companions should prolong The laugh, the revel, and the song. To many an idle hour. Like rivers crimson'd with the beam Of yonder planet bright, Our balmy cups should ever stream No care should touch the mellow heart, For wine can triumph over woe, And Love and Bacchus, brother powers, Could build in Iser's sunny bowers A paradise below. LINES ON REVISITING A SCOTTISH RIVER. Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains; Is this Improvement ?-where the human breed Nor call that evil slight; God has not given My Wallace's own stream, and once romantic Clyde! LINES ON REVISITING CATHCART. OH! scenes of my childhood, and dear to my heart, Then, then, every rapture was young and sincere, Ere the sunshine of bliss was bedimm'd by a tear, And a sweeter delight every scene seem'd to lend, That the mansion of peace was the house of a FRIEND. Now the scenes of my childhood and dear to my heart, All pensive I visit, and sigh to depart; Their flowers seem to languish, their beauty to cease, For a stranger inhabits the mansion of peace. But hush'd be the sigh that untimely complains, While Friendship and all its enchantment remains, While it blooms like the flower of a winterless clime, Untainted by chance, unabated by time. LINES WRITTEN IN SICKNESS. OH, death! if there be quiet in thine arms, And I must cease-gently, oh, gently come, To me! and let my soul learn no alarms, But strike me, ere a shriek can echo, dumb, Senseless, and breathless-And thou, sickly life, If the decree be writ, that I must die, Do thou be guilty of no needless strife, Nor pull me downwards to mortality, When it were fitter I should take a flightBut whither? Holy Pity, hear, oh hear! And lift me to some far-off skyey sphere, Where I may wander in celestial light: Might it be so-then would my spirit fear To quit the things I have so loved, when seenThe air, the pleasant sun, the summer green,— Knowing how few would shed one kindly tear, Or keep in mind that I had ever been! THE "NAME UNKNOWN;" IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK. PROPHETIC pencil! wilt thou trace Or wilt thou write the "Name Unknown," Delicious Idol of my thought! Thy rosy blush, thy meaning eye, Are ever present to my heart; Then fly, my days, on rapid wing, A power in mystic silence seal'd, A guardian angel unreveal'd, And bless the "Name Unknown!" TRAFALGAR WHEN Frenchmen saw, with coward art, That pierced Britain's noblest heart, And quench'd her brightest star, Their shout was heard,-they triumph'd now, And thought the British oak would bow, But fiercer flamed old England's pride, LINES ON THE STATE OF GREECE, OCCASIONED BY BEING PRESSED TO MAKE IT A SUBJECT OF POETRY, 1827. IN Greece's cause the Muse, you deem, That wakens thought too deep for song? The world has heard your widows' shrieks, The ruffian's sabre drinks your veins, Insult your pale and prostrate land. Ride fast by Greece's funeral pile, LINES ON JAMES IV. OF SCOTLAND, WHO PELL AT THE "Twas he that ruled his country's heart But Scotland saw her James depart, She heard his fate-she wept her grief- Was gone for evermore : But this she learnt, that, ere he fell, (O men! O patriots! mark it well), His fellow-soldiers round his fall TO JEMIMA, ROSE, AND ELEANORE, THREE CELEBRATED SCOTTISH BEAUTIES. ADIEU, romance's heroines! Give me the nymphs, who this good hour In whose benignant eyes are beaming Had I been Lawrence, kings had wanted The Catholic bids fair saints befriend him ; Unseal'd by you, these lips have spoken, Ye've tuned a harp whose strings were broken, So, when my fancy next refuses To twine for you a garland more, Come back again and be my muses, SONG. "Tis now the hour-'t is now the hour To bow at beauty's shrine; Now, whilst our hearts confess the power LINES TO EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, My heart is with you, Bulwer! and portrays Joy be to thee, and her whose lot with thine Feels love's bower brighten'd by the beams of fame! SONG. WHEN Love came first to Earth, the Spring But Spring, departing, saw his faith Pledged to the next new-comer- Then sportive Autumn claim'd by rights Her routs and balls, and fireside joy, For this time were his reasons——— In short, young Love's a gallant boy, 'That likes all times and seasons. |