Boat Glee.

The song, that lightens the languid way,
When brows are glowing,

And faint with rowing,

Is like the spell of Hope's airy lay,
To whose sound through life we stray.
The beams that flash on the oar awhile,

As we row along through waves so clear,
Illume its spray, like the fleeting smile
That shines o'er sorrow's tear.

Nothing is lost on him, who sees

With an eye that feeling gave :
For him there's a story in ev'ry breeze,
And a picture in ev'ry wave.
Then sing, to lighten the languid way;
When brows are glowing,

And faint with rowing :

'Tis like the spell of Hope's airy lay,

To whose sound through life we stray.

To sigh, yet feel no pain.

To sigh, yet feel no pain,

To weep, yet scarce know why;
To sport an hour with Beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by;

To kneel at many a shrine,

Yet lay the heart on none;
To think all other charms divine,
But those we just have won ;
This is love-careless love-

Such as kindleth hearts that rove.

To keep one sacred flame

Through life, unchill'd, unmov'd;
To love, in wintry age the same
That first in youth we lov'd;
To feel that we adore

To such refined excess,

That though the heart would break with more,

We could not live with less;

This is love-faithful love,

Such as saints might feel above!

The Light-house.

The scene was more beautiful far to my eye,
Than if day in its pride had array'd it,
The land-breeze blew mild, and the azure arch'd sky
Look'd pure as the Spirit that made it :

The murmur rose soft as I silently gaz'd

In the shadowy waves' playful motion,

From the dim distant hill, till the light-house fire blaz'd Like a star in the midst of the ocean.

No longer the joy of the sailor-boy's breast

Was heard in his wildly-breath'd numbers,
The sea-bird had flown to her wave-girdled nest,
The fisherman sunk to his slumbers:

One moment I look'd from the hill's gentle slope,
All hush'd was the billows' commotion,

And thought that the light-house look'd lovely as hope That star of life's tremulous ocean.

Yet time is long past, and the scene is afar,
Yet when my head rests on its pillow,
Will memory sometimes rekindle the star

That blaz'd on the breast of the billow:
In life's closing hour, when the trembling soul flies,
And death stills the heart's last emotion;
O then may the seraph of mercy arise,
Like a star on eternity's ocean.

Tell me not of joys above.

Tell me not of joys above,

If that world can give no bliss,

Truer, happier than the love

Which enslaves our souls in this!

Tell me not of Houris' eyes;

Far from me their dangerous glow,
If those looks that light the skies

Wound like some that burn below!

Who that feels what love is here,
All its falsehood, all its pain,
Would, for e'en Elysium's sphere,
Risk the fatal dream again?

Who, that 'midst a desert's heat
Sees the waters fade away,
Would not rather die than meet
Streams again as false as they?

There's a bower of roses.

There's a bower of roses by Bendemeer's stream,108 And the nightingale sings round it all the day long; In the time of my childhood 'twas like a sweet dream,

To sit in the roses and hear the bird's song.

That bower and its music I never forget, But oft when alone, in the bloom of the year, I think is the nightingale singing there yet! Are the roses still bright by the calm Bendemeer?

No, the roses soon wither'd that hung o'er the wave, But some blossoms were gather'd, while freshly they shone,

And a dew was distill'd from their flowers that gave All the fragrance of summer, when summer was

gone.

Thus memory draws from delight ere it dies,
An essence that breathes of it many a year;
Thus bright to my soul, as 'twas then to my eyes,
Is that bower on the banks of the calm Bendemeer!

There's a bliss.

There's a bliss beyond all that the minstrel has told,
When two, that are link'd in one heavenly tie,
With heart never changing and brow never cold,
Love on through all ills, and love on till they die !
One hour of a passion so sacred, is worth

Whole ages of heartless and wandering bliss ;
And oh! if there be an Elysium on earth,
It is this, it is this!

To a lady on her singing.

Thy song has taught my heart to feel
Those soothing thoughts of heavenly love,
Which o'er the sainted spirits steal
When listening to the spheres above.

When tir'd of life and misery,
I wish to sigh my latest breath,
Oh! Emma, I will fly to thee,
And thou shalt sing me into death.