High the eddying mists are whirled As they rear their giant forms; See! their tempest flag's unfurled,- Fierce they sweep the prostrate world, And the withering lightning's hurled
Through the storms.
O'er Swilly's rocks they soar, Commissioned watch to keep;
Down, down, with thundering roar,
The exulting demons pour.
The Saldanah floats no more
O'er the deep!
The dreadful hest is past !- All is silent as the grave; One shriek was first and last-
Scarce a death sob drunk the blast, As sunk her towering mast
Beneath the wave.
'Britannia rules the waves'- O vain and impious boast ! Go mark, presumptuous slaves, Where He, who sinks or saves, Scars the sands with countless graves
Twas eight o'clock, and near the fire My ruddy little boy was seated;
And with the titles of a sire,
My ears expected to be greeted. But vain the thought! By sleep oppressed, No father there the child descried;
His head reclined upon his breast,
Or nodding, rolled from side to side.
'Let this young rogue be sent to bed,'- More I had not had time to say, When the poor urchin raised his head To beg that he might longer stay. Refused; away his steps he bent, With tearful eye and aching heart; But claimed his playthings ere he went, And took up stairs his horse and cart.
Still for delay, though oft denied,
He pleaded;-wildly craved the boon ;Though past his usual hour, he cried At being sent to bed so soon! If stern to him, his grief I shared, (Unmoved who sees his offspring weep?) Of soothing him I half despaired, When all his cares were lost in sleep.
'Alas poor infant!' I exclaimed, 'Thy father blushes now to scan In all that he so lately blamed
The follies and the fears of man. The vain regret the anguish brief- What thou hast known sent up to bed, Pourtrays of man the idle grief
When doomed to slumber with the dead.'
And more I thought when up the stairs With longing, lingering looks, he crept; To mark of man the childish cares, His playthings carefully he kept. Thus mortals in life's later stage, When nature claims their forfeit breath, Still grasp at wealth, in pain and age, And cling to golden toys in death!
'Tis morn, and see my smiling boy Awakes to hail returning light; To fearless laughter, boundless joy! Forgot the tears of yesternight! Thus shall not man forget his woe,- Survive of age and death the gloom, Smile at the cares he knew below, And, renovated, burst the tomb ? Literary Gazette.
ON marble tombs let no rich essence flow, No chaplet bloom-no lamp suspended glow; Vain cost! while yet I live, these honours pay, Wine can but moisten ashes into clay.
HER mighty sails the breezes swell, And fast she leaves the lessening land, And from the shore the last farewell Is waved by many a snowy hand; And weeping eyes are on the main, Until its verge she wanders o'er; But, from that hour of parting pain, Oh! she was never heard of more!
In her was many a mother's joy, And love of many a weeping fair; For her was wafted, in its sigh, The lonely heart's unceasing prayer; And oh! the thousand hopes untold Of ardent youth, that vessel bore; Say, were they quenched in ocean cold, For she was never heard of more?
When on her wide and trackless path Of desolation, doomed to flee, Say, sank she 'mid the blending wrath Of racking cloud and rolling sea ? Or, where the land but mocks the eye, Went drifting on a fatal shore ? Vain guesses all! - Her destiny
Is dark:she ne'er was heard of more.
The moon hath twelve times changed her form, From glowing orb to crescent wan; Mid skies of calm, and scowl of storm,
Since from her port that ship hath gone;
But ocean keeps its secret well;
And though we know that all is o'er, No eye hath seen-no tongue can tell Her fate: she ne'er was heard of more!
Oh! were her tale of sorrow known,
'Twere something to the broken-heart, The pangs of doubt would then be gone, And Fancy's endless dreams depart! It may not be :- there is no ray By which her doom we may explore; We only know she sailed away,
And ne'er was seen nor heard of more.
Constable's Edinburgh Magazine.
THERE is an hour, when all our past pursuits, The dreams and passions of our early day, The unripe blessedness that dropped away From our young tree of life, like blasted fruits,- All rush upon the soul: some beauteous form Of one we loved and lost, or dying tone, Haunting the heart with music that is flown, Still lingers near us, with an awful charm! I love that hour, for it is deeply fraught With images of things, no more to be ;- Visions of hope, and pleasure madly sought, And sweeter dreams of love and purity ;- The poesy of heart, that smiled in pain, And all my boyhood worshipped-but in vain !
We met in secret, in the depth of night, When there was none to watch us, not an eye, Save the lone dweller of the silent sky, To gaze upon our love and pure delight! And in that hour's unbroken solitude, When the white moon hath robed her in its beam, I've thought, some vision of a blessed dream,
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