Earthly these passions, as of earth,
They perish where they have their birth.
But love is indestructible;
Its holy flame for ever burneth,
From heaven it came, to heaven returneth!
Too oft on earth a troubled guest,
At times deceived, at times opprest,
It here is tried, and purified,
And hath in heaven its perfect rest;
It soweth here with toil and care,
But the harvest-time of Love is there.
Oh! when a mother meets on high
The babe she lost in infancy,
Hath she not then for pains and fears
The day of woe, the anxious night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An over-payment of delight?
OPPRESS'D with grief, oppress'd with care,
A burden more than I can bear,
I sit me down and sigh:
O Life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim, backward as I cast my view,
What sick'ning scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me through,
Too justly I may fear!
Still caring, despairing,
Must be my bitter doom;
My woes here shall close ne'er,
But with the closing tomb.
Happy the sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard;
E'en when the wished end's denied,
Yet while the busy means are plied,
They bring their own reward:
While I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet ev'ry sad returning night,
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling and justling,
Forget each grief and pain:
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.
How bless'd the solitary's lot!
Who, all forgetting, all forgot,
Within his humble cell,
The cavern wild, with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly gather'd fruits,
Beside his crystal well.
Or haply, to his ev'ning thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of man are distant brought,
A faint collected dream;
While praising and raising
His thoughts to Heav'n on high,
As wand'ring, meand'ring,
He views the solemn sky.
Than I, no lonely hermit placed
Where never human footstep traced,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art.
But ah ! those pleasures, loves, and joys,
Which I too keenly taste,
The solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be bless'd.
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
While I here, must cry here,
At perfidy ingrate!
Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchang'd for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves, that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,
That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim, declining age!
It is not that my lot is low,
That bids this silent tear to flow;
It is not grief that bids me moan,
It is, that I am all alone.
In woods and glens I love to roam
When the tired hedger hies him home;
Or by the woodland pool to rest,
When the pale star looks on its breast.
Yet when the silent evening sighs
With hallow'd airs and symphonies,
My spirit takes another tone,
And sighs that it is all alone.
The autumn leaf is sear and dead,
It floats upon the water's bed;
I would not be a leaf, to die
Without recording sorrow's sigh!
The woods and winds, with sullen wail,
Tell all the same unvaried tale;
I've none to smile when I am free,
And when I sigh, to sigh with me!
Yet in my dreams a form I view,
That thinks on me, and loves me too :
I start, and when the vision's flown,
weep that I am all alone.
MINE be a cot beside the hill ;
A bee-hive's hum shall soothe my ear
A willowy brook, that turns a mill,
With many a fall shall linger near.
The swallow oft, beneath my thatch,
Shall twitter from her clay-built nest;
Oft shall the pilgrim lift the latch,
And share my meal, a welcome guest.
Around my ivied porch shall spring
Each fragrant flower that drinks the dew; And Lucy, at her wheel, shall sing In russet gown and apron blue.
The village church among the trees,
Where first our marriage-vows were given, With merry peals shall swell the breeze, And point with taper spire to heaven.
HENCE! all you vain delights
As short as are the nights,
Wherein you spend your follv:
There's nought in this life sweet,
Were men but wise to see't,
But only melancholy!
O, sweetest melancholy!
Welcome, folded arms and fixed eycs;
A sigh, that piercing, mortifies;
A look that's fasten'd to the ground;
A tongue chain'd up without a sound.
Fountain-heads and pathless groves;
Places which pale passion loves;
Moonlight walks, when all the fowls
Are housed, save the bats and owls;
A midnight hall, a parting groan,—
These are the sounds we feed upon!
Then stretch our bones in a still gloomy valley;
Nothing so dainty, sweet, as lonely melancholy.
THE WIDOW TO HER HOUR-GLASS.
COME, friend, I'll turn thee up again :
Companion of the lonely hour!
Spring thirty times hath fed with rain
And cloth'd with leaves my humble bower,
Since thou last stood
On chest, or window, by my side,
At every birth still thou wert near;
Still spoke thine admonitions clear,-
And when my husband died.
I've often watch'd thy streaming sand,
And seen the growing mountain rise,
And often found life's hopes to stand
On props as weak in wisdom's eyes;
Its conic crown
Still sliding down,
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