And sigh for the friends who can meet me no more! [me O cruel fate! wilt thou never replace in a mansion of peace- where no perils can chase me? Never again shall my brothers embrace me? They died to defend me, or lived to deplore! "Where is my cabin-door, fast by the wild wood? Sisters and sire, did ye weep for its fall? Where is the mother that looked on my childhood ? And where is the bosom-friend, dearer than all ? Oh, my sad heart! long abandoned by pleasure, Why did it doté on a fast-fading treasure? Tears, like the rain drop, may fall without measure, But rapture and beauty they can not recall. "Yet all its sad recollections suppressing, One dying wish my lone bosom can draw: Erin! an exile bequeathes thee this blessing! Land of my forefathers! Erin go bragh! Buried and cold when my heart stil.s her motion, Green be thy fields, - sweetest isle of the ocean! And thy harp-striking bards sing aloud with devotion, Erin mavournin-Erin go bragh!"* TO THE RAINBOW. TRIUMPHAL arch, that fill'st the sky To teach me what thou art Still seem, as to my childhood's sight, Betwixt the earth and heaven. 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 noon 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, The kind, fair friend, by nature marked his own; And, in the waveless mirror of his mind, Views the fleet years of pleasure left behind, Since when her empire o'er his heart began! Since first he called her his before the holy man! And sweep the furrowed lines of Trim the gay taper in his rustic dome, anxious thought away. And light the wintry paradise of home; And let the half-uncurtained window hail Some way-worn man benighted in the vale! Now, while the moaning night-wind rages high, As sweep the shot-stars down the troubled sky, While fiery hosts in Heaven's wide circle play, And bathe in lurid light the milkyway, Safe from the storm, the meteor, and the shower, Some pleasing page shall charm the solemn hour |