And, O! preserve my brothers both
From evil doings and from sloth,
And may we always love each other,
Our friends, our father, and our mother:
And still, O Lord, to me impart
An innocent and grateful heart,
That after my last sleep I may
Awake to thy eternal day!

Amen.

THE VISIONARY HOPE.

SAD lot, to have no hope! Though lowly kneeling
He fain would frame a prayer within his breast,
Would fain entreat for some sweet breath of healing,
That his sick body might have ease and rest;
He strove in vain! the dull sighs from his chest
Against his. will the stifling load revealing,
Though Nature forced; though like some captive

guest,

Some royal prisoner at his conqueror's feast,
An alien's restless mood but half concealing,
The sternness on his gentle brow confessed,
Sickness within and miserable feeling:

Though obscure pangs made curses of his dreams,
And dreaded sleep, each night repelled in vain,
Each night was scattered by its own loud screams:
Yet never could his heart command, though fain,
One deep full wish to be no more in pain.

VOL. I.

N

That Hope, which was his inward bliss and boast, Which waned and died, yet ever near him stood, Though changed in nature, wander where he would

For Love's despair is but Hope's pining ghost!
For this one hope he makes his hourly moan,
He wishes and can wish for this alone!
Pierced, as with light from Heaven, before its
gleams

(So the love-stricken visionary deems)

Disease would vanish, like a summer shower, Whose dews fling sunshine from the noon-tide bower!

Or let it stay! yet this one Hope should give Such strength that he would bless his pains and live.

THE HAPPY HUSBAND.

OFT, oft methinks, the while with Thee
I breathe, as from the heart, thy dear
And dedicated name, I hear

A promise and a mystery,

A pledge of more than passing life,
Yea, in that very name of Wife !

A pulse of love, that ne'er can sleep!
A feeling that upbraids the heart
With happiness beyond desert,

That gladness half requests to weep!
Nor bless I not the keener sense
And unalarming turbulence

Of transient joys, that ask no sting
From jealous fears, or coy denying;
But born beneath Love's brooding wing,
And into tenderness soon dying,

Wheel out their giddy moment, then
Resign the soul to love again ;-

A more precipitated vein

Of notes, that eddy in the flow
Of smoothest song, they come, they go,
And leave their sweeter understrain
Its own sweet self---a love of Thee
That seems, yet cannot greater be!

RECOLLECTIONS OF LOVE.

I.

How warm this woodland wild Recess !
Love surely hath been breathing here;
And this sweet bed of heath, my dear!
Swells

up, then sinks with faint caress, As if to have you yet more near.

II.

Eight springs have flown, since last I lay On sea ward Quantock's heathy hills, Where quiet sounds from hidden rills Float here and there, like things astray, And high o'er head the sky-lark shrills.

III.

No voice as yet had made the air
Be music with your name; yet why
That asking look? that yearning sigh?
That sense of promise every where ?
Beloved! flew your spirit by?

IV.

As when a mother doth explore
The rose-mark on her long lost child,
I met, I loved you, maiden mild!
As whom I long had loved before-
So deeply, had I been beguiled.

V.

You stood before me like a thought,

A dream remembered in a dream.

But when those meek eyes first did seem
Love within you wrought-

To tell me,

O Greta, dear domestic stream!

VI.

Has not, since then, Love's prompture deep

Has not Love's whisper evermore Been ceaseless, as thy gentle roar? Sole voice, when other voices sleep, Dear under-song in clamor's hour.

ON REVISITING THE SEA-SHORE, AFTER LONG ABSENCE, UNDER STRONG MEDICAL RECOMMENDATION NOT TO BATHE.

God be with thee, gladsome Ocean!
How gladly greet I thee once more!
Ships and waves, and ceaseless motion,
And men rejoicing on thy shore.

Dissuading spake the mild physician, "Those briny waves for thee are death!" my soul fulfilled her mission,

But

And lo! I breathe untroubled breath!

Fashion's pining sons and daughters,
That seek the crowd they seem to fly,
Trembling they approach thy waters;
And what cares Nature, if they die?

Me a thousand hopes and pleasures,
A thousand recollections bland,
Thoughts sublime, and stately measures,
Revisit on thy echoing strand: