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But when life's clouds o'ertake us,

And the cold world is clothed in gloom;
When summer friends forsake us,

The rose of Love is best in bloom.
Love is no wandering vapour,

That lures astray with treacherous spark;
Love is no transient taper,

That lives an hour and leaves us dark:
But, like the lamp that lightens

The Greenland hut beneath the snow,

The bosom's home it brightens,

When all beside is chill below.

PRINGLE.

LOVE.

HAT art thou, Love? or who may thee define?
Where lies thy bourne of pleasure or of pain?
No sceptre, graved by Reason's hand, is thine,
Child of the moistened eye, and burning brain,
Of glowing fancy, and the fervid vein,

That soft on bed of roses loves to rest,

And crop the flower where lurks the deadly bane! Oh, many a thorn those dear delights invest, Child of the rosy cheek, and heaving snow-white breast!

Thou art the genial balm of virtuous youth,

And point'st where Honour waves her wreath on high: Like the sweet breeze that wanders from the south, Thou breath'st upon the soul, where embryos lie Of new delights, the treasures of the sky! Who knows thy trembling watch in bower of even! Thy earliest grateful tear and melting sigh? Oh, never was to yearning mortal given So dear delights as thine, thou habitant of heaven!

Oh, I will worship even before thy bust,

When my dimmed eye no more thy smile can see!

While this deserted bosom beats, it must

Still beat in unison with hope and thee!
For I have wept o'er perished ecstasy,
And o'er the fall of Beauty's early prime !
But I will dream of new delights to be,

When moon and stars have ceased their range sublime, Aud angels rung the knell of all-consuming time.

HOGG.

LOVE.

N joyous youth, what soul hath never known
Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own!
Who hath not paused, while Beauty's pensive eye
Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh?
Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame.
The power of grace, the magic of a name?
There be, perhaps, who barren hearts avow,
Cold as the rocks on Torneo's hoary brow;
There be, whose loveless wisdom never failed,
In self-adoring pride securely mailed;
But triumph not, ye peace-enamoured few!
Fire, Nature, Genius, never dwelt with you!
For you no fancy consecrates the scene

Where rapture uttered vows, and wept between ;
'Tis

yours, unmoved, to severe and to meet;
No pledge is sacred, and no home is sweet!
Who that would ask a heart to dulness wed,
The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead!
No, the wild bliss of Nature needs alloy !
And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy!
And say, without our hopes, without our fears,
Without the home that plighted love endears,
Without the smile from partial beauty won,
Oh, what were man?—a world without a sun!
Till Hymen brought his love-delighted hour,
There dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower!

In vain the viewless seraph, lingering there,
At starry midnight charmed the silent air!
In vain the wild bird carolled on the steep,
To hail the sun, slow-wheeling from the deep;
In vain, to soothe the solitary shade,
Aërial notes in mingling measure played;
The summer wind that shook the spangled tree,
The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee;-
Still slowly passed the melancholy day,
And still the stranger wist not where to stray,-
The world was sad! the garden was a wild!
And Man, the hermit, sighed—till Woman smiled!

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AIL, holy love! thou word that sums all bliss. Gives and receives all bliss, fullest when most Thou givest! spring-head of all felicity, Deepest when most is drawn! emblem of God! O'erflowing most when greatest numbers drink! Essence that binds the uncreated Three, Chain that unites creation to its Lord, Centre to which all being gravitates, Eternal, ever-growing, happy Love! Enduring all, hoping, forgiving all; Instead of law, fulfilling every law;

Entirely blest, because thou seek'st no more, Hop'st not, nor fear'st; but on the present liv'st, And hold'st perfection smiling in thy arms. Mysterious, infinite, exhaustless Love! On earth mysterious, and mysterious still In heaven! sweet chord, that harmonizes all The harps of paradise! the spring, the well, That fills the bowl and banquet of the sky. Hail, Love; first Love, thou word that sums all bliss! The sparkling cream of all Time's blessedness,

The silken down of happiness complete!
Discerner of the ripest grapes of joy

She gathered, and selected with her hand,
All finest relishes, all fairest sights,

All rarest odours, all divinest sounds,

All thoughts, all feelings dearest to the soul;

And brought the holy mixture home, and filled
The heart with all superlatives of bliss.

But who would that expound which words transcends Must talk in vain. Behold a meeting scene

Of early love, and thence infer its worth.

POLLOK.

DOMESTIC LOVE.

OMESTIC Love! not in proud palace halls
Is often seen thy beauty to abide;
Thy dwelling is in lonely cottage walls.

That in the thickets of the woodbine hide,
With hum of bees around, and from the side

Of woody hills some little bubbling spring

Shining along through banks with harebells dyed;

And many a bird to warble on the wing,

When Morn her saffron robe o'er heaven and earth doth fling.

Oh, Love of loves! to thy white hand is given
Of earthly happiness the golden key.

Thine are the joyous hours of winter's even,
When the babes cling around their father's knee;
And thine the voice that on the midnight sea,
Melts the rude mariner with thoughts of home,
Peopling the gloom with all he longs to see.
Spirit! I've built a shrine, and thou hast come,
And on its altar closed, for ever closed thy plume!

CROLY.

DOMESTIC LOVE.

UT happy they! the happiest of their kind!
Whom gentler stars unite, and in one fate
Their hearts, their fortunes, and their beings

blend.

'Tis not the coarser tie of human laws,
Unnatural oft, and foreign to the mind,
That binds their peace, but harmony itself,
Attuning all their passions into love:

Where Friendship full exerts her softest power,
Perfect esteem, enlivened by desire

Ineffable, and sympathy of soul;

Thought meeting thought, and will preventing will,
With boundless confidence; for nought but love
Can answer love, and render bliss secure.
O speak the joy, ye whom the sudden tear
Surprises often, while you look around,

And nothing strikes your eye but sights of bliss;
All various Nature pressing on the heart;
An elegant sufficiency, content,

Retirement, rural quiet, friendship, books,
Ease and alternate labour, useful life,
Progressive virtue, and approving Heaven!

THOMSON.

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

HERE is in all this cold and hollow world no fount Of deep, strong, deathless love, save that within A mother's heart.—It is but pride, wherewith To his fair son the father's eye doth turn, Watching his growth. Ay, on the boy he looks, The bright glad creature springing in his path, But as the heir of his great name, the young And stately tree, whose rising strength ere long Shall bear his trophies well.—And this is love!

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