A place where all things mournful meet,
And, yet, the sweetest of the sweet!-
The stillest of the still!
With what a pensive beauty fall
Across the mossy mouldering wall
That rose-tree's cluster'd arches! See
The robin-redbreast, warily,
Bright through the blossoms leave his nest :
Sweet ingrate! through the winter blest
At the firesides of men-but shy
Through all the many summer hours,--
He hides himself among the flowers
In his own wild festivity.
What lulling sound, and shadow cool,
Hangs half the darkened churchyard o'er,
From thy green depths, so beautiful,
Thou gorgeous sycamore!
Oft hath the lowly wine and bread
Been blest beneath thy murmuring tent;
Where many a bright and hoary head
Bowed at that awful sacrament.
Now all beneath that turf are laid,
On which they sat, and sang, and pray'd. · Above that consecrated tree
Ascends the tapering spire, that seems
To lift the soul up silently
To heaven, with all its dreams!-
While in the belfry, deep and low,
From his heaved bosom's purple gleams
The dove's continuous murmurs flow,
A dirge-like song,-half bliss, half woe,-
The voice so lonely seems!
MORN on the waters !-and, purple and bright,
Bursts on the billows the flashing of light;
O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See, the tall vessel goes gallantly on;
Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,
And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the
The winds come around her, in murmur and song,
And the surges rejoice as they bear her along;
See! she looks up to the golden-edged clouds,
And the sailor sings gaily aloft in the shrouds:
Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray,
Over the waters,-away, and away!
Bright as the visions of youth, ere they part,
Passing away, like a dream of the heart!
Who-as the beautiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her, and sunshine on high-
Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow,
Oh! there be hearts that are breaking below!
Night on the waves !-and the moon is on high,
Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky,
Treading its depths in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to
light!
Look to the waters !-asleep on their breast,
Seems not the ship like an island of rest?
Bright and alone on the shadowy main,
Like a heart-cherish'd home on some desolate
Who-as she smiles in the silvery light,
Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,
A phantom of beauty-could deem with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin,
And that souls that are smitten lie bursting within?
Who-as he watches her silently gliding-
Remembers that wave after wave is dividing
Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,
Hearts which are parted and broken for ever
Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's
grave?
'Tis thus with our life, while it passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song!
Gaily we glide, in the gaze of the world,
With streamers afloat, and with canvass anfurl'd;
All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes,
Yet charter'd by sorrow, and freighted with sighs:
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,
As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears; And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know,
Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below;
Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore Where the dreams of our childhood are vanish'd
L. E. LANDON.
Он, wеeр no more, sweet mother,
Oh, weep no more to-night;
And only watch the sea, mother,
Beneath the morning light.
Then the bright blue sky is joyful,
And the bright blue sky is clear,
And I can see, sweet mother,
To kiss away your tear.
But now the wind goes wailing
O'er the dark and trackless deep,
And I know your grief, sweet mother,
Though I only hear you weep.
My father's ship will come, mother,
In safety o'er the main;
When the grapes are dyed with purple, He will be back again.
The vines were but in blossom
When he bade me watch them grow;
And now the large leaves, mother,
Conceal their crimson glow.
He'll bring us shells and sea-weed,
And birds of shining wing;
But what are these, dear mother?
It is himself he'll bring.
I'll watch with thee, sweet mother,
But the stars fade from my sight;
Come, come and sleep, dear mother-
Oh, weep no more to-night.
Or Nelson and the North,
Sing the glorious day's renown,
When to battle fierce came forth
All the might of Denmark's crown,
And her arms along the deep proudly shone;
By each gun the lighted brand,
In a bold determined hand,
And the Prince of all the land
Led them on.
Like leviathans afloat,
Lay their bulwarks on the brine;
While the sign of battle flew
On the lofty British line :
It was ten of April morn by the chime:
As they drifted on their path,
There was silence deep as death;
And the boldest held his breath,
For a time.-
But the might of England flush'd
To anticipate the scene;
And her van the fleeter rush'd
O'er the deadly space between.
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