| The same fond mother bent at night One, 'midst the forests of the west, The sea, the blue lone sea, hath one; One sleeps where southern vines are dressed He wrapt his colours round his breast, And one-o'er her the myrtle showers And parted thus they rest, who played They that with smiles lit up the hall, And cheered with song the hearth,— Alas! for love, if thou wert all, MRS. HEMANS. THE DEAD. HE dead are like the stars by day But not extinct, they hold their way In glory through the sky: Spirits from bondage thus set free, Vanish amidst immensity, Where human thought, like human sight, Fails to pursue their trackless flight. KNOW thou hast gone to the home of thy rest, I know thou hast gone where the weary are blest, Where Love has put off, in the land of its birth, And Hope, the sweet singer that gladdened the earth, I know thou hast gone where thy forehead is starred Where the light of thy loveliness cannot be marred, I know thou hast drunk of the Lethe that flows And takes from it only regret! In thy far away dwelling, wherever it be, 194977B In the hush of the night, in the waste of the sea, I have ever a presence that whispers of thee, Mine eye must be dark that so long has been dimmed, But my heart has revealings of thee and thy home, In many a token and sign: I never look up, with a vow to the sky, But a light like thy beauty is there, And I hear a low murmur, like thine, in reply, And though like a mourner that sits by a tomb Yet the grief of my bosom-oh! call it not gloom- By sorrow revealed as the stars are by night, And Hope, like the rainbow, a creature of light, T. K. HERVEY. EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. N life's wild ocean, sorrowful and pained, How many voyagers their course perform! This little bark a kinder fate obtained; It reached the harbour ere it met the storm. ANON. EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. RE sin could blight, or sorrow fade, COLERIDGE. TIME. OLL on, roll on, thy ceaseless tide, While on thy noiseless breast I glide Swiftly to yonder shore Roll on, roll on. Though like a dream the years have fled, I launched my fragile bark, and sped, Roll on, roll on. Though winds that rent my flowing sail The clouds no more the rising gale Betoken driving low— Wrapt in the future, present, past, O'er the soul's divinity— Roll on, roll on. Enraptured with its heavenly view, Breaks through the world's dark avenue, Till faith is lost in sight- Roll on, roll on. Yea! though a wreck upon the sands This body lie, I'll burst thy bands, Time! with thy yawning grave— Roll on, roll on. REV. W G. MOORE, TIME. HIS shadow on the dial's face With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Since light and motion first began, Hath held its course sublime; What is it? mortal man! It is the scythe of time :- It levels all beneath the sky, And still, through each succeeding year, Right onward, with resistless power, Its stroke shall darken every hour, Fill nature's race be run, And time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun. |