HANNAH. Ar fond sixteen my roving heart Where circling woods embower'd the glade, I stole her hand,-it shrunk,-but no; With all the fervency of youth, Not with a warmer, purer ray, But, swifter than the frighted dove, The angel of affliction rose, Yet, in the glory of my pride, I stood, and all his wrath defied; I stood, though whirlwinds shook my brain, And lightnings cleft my soul in twain. I shunn'd my nymph;-and knew not why I shunn'd her-for I could not bear Yet, sick at heart with hope delay'd, The storm blew o'er, and in my breast 'Twas on a merry morn of May, Then as I climb'd the mountains o'er, I saw the village steeple rise,- I met a wedding,-stepp'd aside; -There is a grief that cannot feel; It leaves a wound that will not heal; -My heart grew cold,-it felt not then: When shall it cease to feel again? THE OCEAN. WRITTEN AT SCARBOROUGH, IN THE SUMMER OF 1805. ALL hail to the ruins, the rocks and the shores! Or dive in the gulf, or triumphantly ride, From the tumult and smoke of the city set free, From the crest of the mountain I gaze upon thee; And moves on thy waters, wherever they roll, From the day-darting zone to the night-shadow'd pole. My spirit descends where the day-spring is born, Where the billows are rubies on fire, And the breezes that rock the light cradle of morn O regions of beauty, of love, and desire! Placed far on the fathomless main, Where nature with innocence dwelt in her youth, But now the fair rivers of Paradise wind Despoiling, destroying its charms; Beneath his broad footstep the Ganges is dry, Thus the pestilent Upas, the demon of trees, The birds on the wing, and the flowers in their beds, That darkens the noonday with death, And pale ghosts of travellers wander around, While their mouldering skeletons whiten the ground. Ah! why hath JEHOVAH, in forming the world, With the waters divided the land, His ramparts of rocks round the continent hurl'd, And cradled the deep in his hand, If man may transgress his eternal command, * Scarborough Castle. And leap o'er the bounds of his birth, To ravage the uttermost earth, And violate nations and realms that should be Distinct as the billows, yet one as the sea? There are, gloomy ocean, a brotherless clan, -But the cries of the fatherless mix with her praise, And the tears of the widow are shed on her bays. O Britain! dear Britain! the land of my birth: Thou pearl of the ocean! thou gem of the earth! From the homes of their kindred, their forefathers' O let not thy bi.thright be sold graves, Love, friendship, and conjugal bliss, They are dragg'd on the hoary abyss; The shark hears their shrieks, and ascending to-day, Then joy to the tempest that whelms them beneath, Where the vultures and vampires of Mammon resort; Where Europe exultingly drains The life-blood from Africa's veins; Where man rules o'er man with a merciless rod, The hour is approaching-a terrible hour! In a moment entomb'd in the horrible void, Shall this be the fate of the cane-planted isles, For reprobate glory and gold: Thy distant dominions like wild graftings shoot, They weigh down thy trunk,-they will tear up thy root: The root of thine OAK, O my country! that stands Rock-planted and flourishing free; Its branches are stretch'd o'er the uttermost lands, The blood of our ancestors nourish'd the tree; Though poor were your fathers,-gigantic and bold, But firm as our rocks, and as free as our waves, In the shipwreck of nations we stood up alone,The world was great Cæsar's-but Britain our own. "For ages and ages, with barbarous foes, The Saxon, Norwegian, and Gaul, We wrestled, were foil'd, were cast down, but we rose With new vigour, new life, from each fall: When the sun o'er the ocean descending in smiles, By all we were conquer'd—WE CONQUER'D THEM Sinks softly and sweetly to rest? -No-Father of mercy! befriend the opprest; May the sorrows of Africa cease; To walk in thy freedom, and dwell in thy light!* As homeward my weary-wing'd fancy extends, Ah, me! what new prospects, new horrors arise? All foaming, and panting with blood; For Britannia is wielding the trident to-day And hurling her thunder with absolute sway -She triumphs;-the winds and the waters con spire, -To spread her invincible name; -The universe rings with her fame; ALL. -The cruel, and cannibal mind, We soften'd, subdued, and refined; Bears, wolves, and sea-monsters, they rush'd from their den; We taught them, we tamed them, we turn'd them to men. "Love led the wild hordes in his flower-woven bands, The tenderest, strongest of chains; Love married our hearts, he united our hands, One race we became :-on the mountains and plains, The unquenchable altar of liberty blazed, "Ark, altar, and temple, we left with our breath' To our children, a sacred bequest; O guard them, O keep them, in life and in death! And avarice, the soul of a slave, Alluding to the glorious success of the Moravian mis. No longer seduce your affections to roam sionaries among the Negroes in the West Indies. From liberty, justice, religion, AT HOME." THE COMMON LOT. ONCE in the flight of ages past, There lived a man ;-and WHO WAS HE? Unknown the region of his birth, That joy and grief, and hope and fear, The bounding pulse, the languid limb, He suffer'd, but his pangs are o'er; Had friends, his friends are now no more; He loved,--but whom he loved, the grave He saw whatever thou hast seen; Encounter'd all that troubles thee; He was whatever thou hast been; He is what thou shalt be. The rolling seasons, day and night, The clouds and sunbeams, o'er his eye The annals of the human race, The weeping minstrel sings, And, while her numbers flow, My spirit trembles with the strings, Responsive to the notes of wo. Would gladness move a sprightlier strain, And wake his wild harp's clearest tones, The chords, impatient to complain, Are dumb, or only utter moans. And yet, to soothe the mind With luxury of grief, The soul to suffering all resign'd In sorrow's music feels relief. Thus o'er the light Eolian lyre The winds of dark November stray, Touch the quick nerve of every wire, And on its magic pulses play; Till all the air around Mysterious murmurs fill, A strange bewildering dream of sound, O! snatch the harp from Sorrow's hand, Of vanish'd troubles sing, Of fears for ever fled, of flowers that hear the voice of spring, And burst and blossom from the dead: Of home, contentment, health, repose, In some calm sunset hour of peace; Celestial May of youth, Unchanging as Jehovah's love, And everlasting as his truth: Sing, heavenly Hope!-and dart thine hand Ah! then, this gloom control, THE HARP OF SORROW. I GAVE my harp to Sorrow's hand, Of dear, departed hours, Too fondly loved to last, The dew, the breath, the bloom of flowers, Of long, long years of future care, Beyond the judgment-day of death:- POPE'S WILLOW. Verses written for an urn, made out of the trunk of the weeping willow, imported from the East, and planted by Pope in his grounds at Twickenham, where it flourished many years; but, falling into decay, it was lately cut down. ERE Pope resign'd his tuneful breath, By harvest moonlight there he spied One morn, while Time thus mark'd the tree "The hand," he cried, "that planted thee O'er mine was oft victorious; Be vengeance now my calm employ,-- He spake, and struck a silent blow With that dread arm whose motion And cleft the core asunder, In vain did spring those bowers restore, Hoary, and weak, and bent with age, O Pope! hadst thou, whose lyre so long This weeping willow planted; IMITATED FROM THE FRENCH. O, WHEN shall I visit the land of my birth, Our hamlets, our mountains, My sister, my brother, And dear Isabella, the joy of them all? THE DIAL. THIS shadow on the dial's face, That steals from day to day, It is the scythe of time: It levels all beneath the sky; And still, through each succeeding year And time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun |