THE LIFE AND DEATH.

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THE DEATH.

Hark to the toll of the passing bell,

Which "swinging slow with solemn roar," Carries the dismal funeral knell

O'er the thrilling waves of the Plymouth shore;
And is borne afar by the shuddering breeze,
From Wembury's cliffs to Mount-Edgecombe's trees.
Nature appears to have thrown a pall
Over that landscape so rich and fair,
For a withering gloom and sadness fall
Alike upon ocean, earth, and air,

And the darkling heights in the distance show
Like spectral mourners, grim with woe.

The bittern's wail and the sea-mew's cry,
Seem to share the deep and wide distress,
As their wings they spread, and seaward fly
Away from that scene of wretchedness:
And the booming moan of the distant surge
Falls on the ear like a doleful dirge.
Hark! 'tis a female cry-'tis the sound.
Of a widow's heart with anguish torn;
A groan succeeds, and the sob profound
Of a sireless son, aghast, forlorn!
And oh! how loving and loved they were,
Their own 'reft hearts can alone declare.

Behold! from St. Andrew's Church

A funeral train in its sad array,

appears

Whose mourners, blind in their staunchless tears,
With faltering footsteps feel their way
To the bones and mould thrown up in a heap
Beside a sepulchre dark and deep.

The coffin is sunk, the prayer is poured"Ashes to ashes, and dust to dust." They sprinkle earth on the rattling board,

And they whose heads o'er the grave are thrust, Draw back at the sound with a shuddering start, For its awful echoes thrill their heart.

As if it were sent to reveal and bless,
A ray through the lurid vapour beams-
Pierces the sepulchre's ghastliness,

And lo! on the coffin's plate it gleams. Th' inscription now may be plainly read"Charles Mathews"—that's the name of the dead.

God! can it be?-is that breath resigned

Which rendered the brightest joy more bright?

Does that life of life, and mind of mind,

The circle's soul, and the world's delight,
Lie stretched in the coffin's silence, dark,
Cold-lifeless-ghastly-stiff and stark?

What proofs of his friendship, wit, and worth,
On memory crowd, and recall past years!
But I cannot give their record birth,

For my heart and my eyes are both in tears:
Let me drop the pen-let me quit the lay,
And rush from my own sad thoughts away.

HOPE'S YEARNINGS.

How sweet it is, when wearied with the jars

Of wrangling sects, each soured with bigot leaven,

To let the Spirit burst its prison bars

And soar into the deep repose of Heaven!

HOPE'S YEARNINGS.

How sweet it is, when sick with strife and noise
Of the fell brood that owes to faction birth,
To turn to Nature's tranquillizing joys,

And taste the soothing harmonies of Earth!

But though the lovely Earth, and Sea, and Air,
Be rich in joys that form a sumless sum,
Filled with Nepenthes that can banish care,
And wrap the senses in Elysium,

'Tis sweeter still from these delights to turn
Back to our kind-to watch the course of Man,
And for that blessed consummation yearn,

When Nature shall complete her noble plan;

When hate, oppression, vice, and crime, shall cease,
When War's ensanguined banner shall be furled,
And to our moral system shall extend

The perfectness of the material world.

Sweetest of all, when 'tis our happy fate

To drop some tribute, trifling though it prove, On the thrice-hallowed altar dedicate

To Man's improvement, truth, and social love.

Faith in our race's destined elevation,
And its incessant progress to the goal,
Tends, by exciting hope and emulation,
To realise the aspirings of the soul.

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73

TO A LOG OF WOOD UPON THE FIRE.

WHEN Horace, as the snows descended
On Mount Soracte, recommended
That logs be doubled,

Until a blazing fire arose,

I wonder whether thoughts like those
Which in my noddle interpose,
His fancy troubled.

Poor Log! I cannot hear thee sigh,
And groan, and hiss, and see thee die,
To warm a Poet,

Without evincing thy success,

And as thou wanest less and less,
Inditing a farewell address

To let thee know it.

Peeping from earth—a bud unveiled,
Some"
bosky bourne" or dingle hailed
Thy natal hour;

While infant winds around thee blew,
And thou wert fed with silver dew,
And tender sunbeams oozing through
Thy leafy bower.

Earth-water-air-thy growth prepared;
And if perchance some robin, scared
From neighbouring manor,

Perched on thy crest, it rocked in air,

Making his ruddy feathers flare

In the sun's ray, as if they were
A fairy banner.

TO A LOG OF WOOD UPON THE FIRE.

Or if some nightingale impressed
Against thy branching top her breast
Heaving with passion,

And in the leafy nights of June,
Outpoured her sorrows to the moon,
Thy trembling stem thou didst attune
To each vibration.

Thou grew'st a goodly tree, with shoots
Fanning the sky, and earth-bound roots
So grappled under,

That thou whom perching birds could swing,
And zephyrs rock with lightest wing,
From thy firm trunk unmoved didst fling
Tempest and thunder.

Thine offspring leaves-death's annual prey,
Which Herod Winter tore away

From thy caressing,

In heaps, like graves, around thee blown,
Each morn thy dewy tears have strown,
O'er each thy branching hands been thrown,
As if in blessing.

Bursting to life, another race

At touch of Spring in thy embrace,
Sported and fluttered;

Aloft, where wanton breezes played,
In thy knit boughs have ringdoves made
Their nest, and lovers in thy shade
Their vows have uttered.

How oft thy lofty summits won
Morn's virgin smile, and hailed the sun
With rustling motion;

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