The choicest of the few

That Nature highly dressed,

I placed as if they grew

Directly on my breast;

And while they bloomed in freshness there,

I yielded not to grief or care.

But now, alas! the charm,

Grown obsolete with years,

Fails wholly to disarm

My soul of anxious fears;

And all my hope when ills o'erpower,

Lies in one everlasting flower.

Then hail, auspicious May!

With all thy festive mirth;

And hail the joyful day

That chronicled the birth

Of her, whom but to hear and see,

Is like eternal life to me.

STANZAS

SUGGESTED DURING AN ATTENDANCE ON DIVINE WORSHIP, IN THE EVENING OF SUNDAY, SEPT. 22. 1850.

How oft, oh Lord! have I professed
Within Thy courts to seek for grace,

And yet the while with impious zest

Have dared to mock Thee to Thy face.

A faulty style, a word misplaced,

Or even an unwelcome tone

In Thine anointed, has effaced

The feeble light that in me shone.

If eloquence have touched the chord

Of tenderness for one short hour,

Succeeding apathy has lowered

The standard of its melting power.

A thousand grateful hearts employed

In offering up their praise to Thee,

Have shown me what a godless void
Unhappily prevails in me.

And though resolved to spend my days Hereafter at my Master's feet,

As often have I sought the ways

In which unholy passions meet.

When shall I, Lord, on earth attain
The conscious rectitude I need,

And feeling that to die is gain,

Be thus from apprehension freed?

I want that purity of heart

Which, lost to every sense beside, Shall see in all things that Thou art, And Thou alone, my hope and guide.

A VISION.

In dark foreboding Horror sat enshrined
Amidst the tombs, with pallor deeply graven

Upon his demon shape: around him twined
The undying worm with which the earth was paven,—
Black and insatiate as the night-winged raven.

Quenching affrighted Hope with venomed tongue,

And gnawing in despite the spirits craven,

Missiles of reeking hate he wildly flung

With quick unerring aim upon the palsied throng.

Forth issued from its slimy bed obscure,
Weaving a volume of incessant plaint,
A priestly shadow, loathsome and impure
As imprecation, hurled by frenzied saint
On rival creed, abjuring all restraint.
Starting with fell convulsive glare, it passed
The monster Phantom, deepening every taint
Of its own hideousness, till rooted fast

In foul identity that should for ages last.

Then came another crimsoned o'er with blood,

Drawn from the broken heart-strings of his sire,

Which, in a warm antagonistic flood,

Had slaked the burning of the murderer's ire.
Slowly consuming as the funeral pyre,
But destined ever in this grave to writhe,
He lighted up the tombs with living fire,

That levied on Remorse a heavier tithe

Than oft ensues upon Death's sin-avenging scythe.

Steeped in the curse of lust's incestuous deed

And sordidness inextricably woven,

Was one who impiously sought to plead
Unconsciousness of crimes too clearly proven.

Upon his head the foot of Horror, cloven

With hell's dread wrought inimitable die,

Was stamped, as clay is for the yawning oven;

And darting hatred from his lurid eye,

He rolled unpitied in despair and agony.