I chose not her, my soul's elect, From those who seek their Maker's shrine As if themselves were things divine! Not so the faded form I prize, And love, because its bloom is gone; The glory in those sainted eyes Is all the grace her brow puts on. And ne'er was Beauty's dawn so bright, So touching as that form's decay, Which, like the altar's trembling light, In holy lustre wastes away! The bird let loose. Air-Beethoven. The bird, let loose in eastern skies,70 Ne'er stoops to earth her wing, nor flies Where idle warblers roam. But high she shoots through air and light, Where nothing earthly bounds her flight, way. 1 So grant me, God, from every care, Oh! Thou, who dry'st the mourner's tear! Air-Haydn. "He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds." -Psalm cxlvii. 3. Oh! Thou, who dry'st the mourner's tear, How dark this world would be, If, when deceiv'd and wounded here, The friends, who in our sunshine live, And he, who has but tears to give, But Thou wilt heal that broken heart, When Joy no longer soothes or cheers, Is dimm'd and vanish'd too! Oh! who would bear Life's stormy doom, Come, brightly wafting through the gloom Then Sorrow, touch'd by Thee, grows bright Weep not for those. Air-Avisen. Weep not for those, whom the veil of the tomb, 'Tis frozen in all the pure light of its course, And but sleeps, till the sunshine of Heav'n has unchain'd it, To water that Eden, where first was its source! Weep not for those, whom the veil of the tomb, In life's happy morning, hath hid from our eyes, Ere sin threw a blight o'er the spirit's young bloom, Or earth had profan'd what was born for the skies. Mourn not for her, the young Bride of the Vale,71 Our gayest and loveliest, lost to us now! Ere life's early lustre had time to grow pale, And the garland of Love was yet fresh on her brow; Oh! then was her moment, dear Spirit, for flying From this gloomy world, while its gloom was unknown; And the wild hymns she warbled so sweetly, in dying, Were echoed in Heaven by lips like her own! Weep not for her-in her spring-time she flew To that land where the wings of the soul are unfurl'd, And now, like a star beyond evening's cold dew, Looks radiantly down on the tears of this world. The turf shall be my fragrant shrine. Air-Stevenson. The turf shall be my fragrant shrine; My choir shall be the moonlight waves, E'en more than music, breathes of Thee! I'll seek, by day, some glade unknown, Thy Heaven, on which 'tis bliss to look, I'll read thy Anger in the rack That clouds awhile the day-beam's track; Thy Mercy, in the azure hue Of sunny brightness, breaking through! There's nothing bright, above, below, There's nothing dark, below, above, |