organ play, [From The Pleasures of Hope.] LET winter come! let polar spirits sweep The darkening world, and tempesttroubled deep! Though boundless snows the withered heath deform, And the dim sun scarce wanders through the storm, Yet shall the smile of social love repay, With mental light, the melancholy day! And, when its short and sullen noor is o'er, The ice-chained waters slumbering on the shore, How bright the fagots in his little hall Blaze on the hearth, and warm his pictured wall! How blest he names, in Love's familiar tone, And sweep the furrowed lines of Trim the gay taper in his rustic dome, anxious thought away. [From The Pleasures of Hope.] HOPE IN ADVERSITY. BRIGHT as the pillar rose at Heaven's command, When Israel marched along the des ert land, Blazed through the night on lonely wilds afar, a never-setting And bathe in lurid light the milky awful hour! widow's tears, Oh! then, thy kingdom comes, im-Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so mortal Power! What though each spark of earthborn rapture fly The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye! Bright to the soul thy seraph hands dread, As waves the night-shade round the skeptic head. What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's I chain ? smile on death, if Ileavenward Hope remain: But, if the warring winds of Nature's strife Be all the faithless charter of my life, If Chance awakened, inexorable power This frail and feverish being of an hour; Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep, Swift as the tempest travels on the deep, To know Delight but by her parting smile, And toil, and wish, and weep a little while; Then melt, ye elements, that formed in vain This troubled pulse and visionary brain! Fade, ye wild flowers, memorials of my doom, And sink, ye stars, that light me to the tomb! Truth, ever lovely, since the world began, The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man, How can thy words from balmy slumber start Reposing Virtue pillowed on the heart! |