Where are they now, and where, oh where,
The eager, fond caress,
The blooming cheek so fresh and fair,
The lips all sought to press?
open brow and laughing eye, The heart that leaped so joyously?
Ah, had we loved them less!
Yet there are thoughts can bring relief,
And sweeten even this cup
Thou hast escaped a thorny scene,
A wilderness of woe,
Where many a blast of anguish keen
Had taught thy tears to flow;
Perchance some wild and withering grief
Had sered thy summer's earliest leaf,
In these dark bowers below,
Or sickening thrills of hope deferred,
To strife thy gentlest thoughts had stirred!
Thou hast escaped life's fitful sea
Before the storm arose,
Whilst yet its gliding waves were free
From aught that marred repose;
Safe from the thousand throes of pain,
Ere sin or sorrow breathed a stain
Upon thine opening rose ;-
And who can calmly think of this,
Nor envy thee thy doom of bliss?
I culled from home's beloved bowers
To deck thy last long sleep,
The brightest hued, most fragrant flowers
That summer's dews may steep:
The rosebud, emblem meet, was there,
The violet blue, and jasmine fair,
That drooping seemed to weep;
And now I add this lowlier spell:-
Sweets to the passing sweet, farewell!
SUGGESTED BY MR. DAVID ROBERTS'S EGYPTIAN SKETCHES.
THE poetry of earth is fading fast;
It hath no region it can call its own;
The dim religious light of old that cast
Mysterious beauty on its haunts hath flown!
Science, with eye of microscopic power,
And disenchanting lamp, from land to land,
With railroad speed continues still to scour,
Till scarce a spot on earth remains unscanned.
Even the vast Pyramid hath now become
A thing whose secrets all are known too well;
The Harp of Memnon is for ever dumb;
And even the Sphinx hath nothing left to tell;
The Nile, so long a river of the heart,
Hath now no mystic problem to unveil ;
And its drear desert, once a thing apart
From common roads, we soon may cross by rail!
No green oasis now enchants the eye,
With its tall palms and fountains bubbling o'er;
The desert ship we loved in days gone by,
Is but a camel now, "and nothing more!"
Then why through Egypt should I seek to roam,
Fancy to feed with scenes that will but mock it;
With graphic Roberts for my guide (at home),
And Murray's trusty "Hand-Book" in my pocket.
'TIS Night; and Silence with unmoving wings
Broods o'er the sleeping waters;-not a sound
Breaks its most breathless hush. The sweet moon flings
Her pallid lustre on the hills around,
Turning the snows and ices that have crowned,
Since Chaos reigned, each vast, untrodden height,
To beryl, pearl, and silver;—whilst, profound,
In the calm, waveless lake, reflected bright,
And girt with arrowy rays, rests her full orb of light.
The eternal mountains momently are peering
Through the dark clouds that mantle them; on high
Their glittering crests majestically rearing,
More like to children of the infinite sky,
Than of the dædal earth. Triumphantly,
Prince of the whirlwind, Monarch of the scene,
Mightiest where all are mighty; from the eye
Of mortal man half hidden by the screen
Of mists that veil his base from Arve's dark, deep ravine,
Stands the magnificent Montblanc; his brow
Scarred with innumerous thunders;-most sublime,
Even as though risen from the world below
To mark the progress of Decay; by clime,
Storm, blight, fire, earthquake, lessened not; like Time, Stern chronicler of centuries gone by,
Doomed by a heavenly fiat still to climb,
Swell and increase with years incessantly, .
Then yield at length to thee, most dread Eternity!
Hark! there are sounds of tumult and commotion
Hurtling in murmurs on the distant air,
Like the wild music of a wind-lashed ocean;—
They rage, they gather now; yon valley fair
Still sleeps in moon-bright loveliness, but there
Methinks a form of horror I behold
With giant-stride descending! 'Tis Despair,
Riding the rushing Avalanche; now rolled
From yon steep slope-by whom-what mortal may unfold?
Perchance a breath from fervid Italy
Unloosed the air-hung thunderer; or the tone
Poured from some hunter's horn; or, it may be,
The echoes of the mountain cataract, thrown
Amid its voiceful snows, have thus called down
The overwhelming ruin on the vale.
Howbeit a mystery to man unknown,
'Twas but some unseen power that did prevail, For an inscrutable end, its slumbers to assail.
Madly it bursts along, like a broad river
That gathers strength in its most fierce career;
The black and lofty pines a moment quiver
Before its breath, but, as it draws more near,
Crash-and are seen no more. Fleet-footed Fear,
Pale as that white-robed minister of wrath,
In silent wilderment her face doth rear,
And, having gazed upon its blight and scathe, Flies with the swift chamois from its death-dooming path!
"Poesy! thou sweet'st content
That e'er Heaven to mortals lent,
Though for thy sake I am crossed,
Though my best hopes I have lost,
And I knew thou'dst make my trouble
Ten times more than ten times double,
I should love and keep thee too,
Spite of all the world could do.
Though thou be to them a scorn
That to nought but earth are born;
Let my life no longer be,
Than I am in love with thee!"
I ALWAYS loved thee, gentle Poesy!
And though thou oft hast served to work me woe,
Do love thee still;-nurtured beneath thine eye,
"For me the meanest, simplest flowers that blow,
Have often thoughts that lie too deep for tears."
Not all the joys the multitude can know,
Should e'er seduce my bosom to forego
Thy sacred influence: yet from earliest years,
Like that frail plant whose shrinking leaves betray
The careless pressure of an idle hand,
My heart, unschooled in guile, could ne'er command
Its hectics of the moment :-let thy ray,
Then, thou sweet source of sorrow and delight,
Beam on thy votary's soul with more attempered light.
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