224

A COLLOQUY WITH MYSELF.

What is death-asunder rending
Every tie we love so well?
But the gate to life un-ending,
Joy in heaven! or woe in hell!

Can these truths, by repetition,
Lose their magnitude or weight?
Estimate thy own condition,

Ere thou pass that fearful gate.

Hast thou heard them oft repeated?
Much may still be left to do:
Be not by profession cheated;

LIVE! as if thou knew'st them true!

ORFORD.

A SONNET, INSCRIBED TO MY FRIEND JOHN WODDERSPOON.

REMEMBEREST thou that pleasant summer day
Spent by us at old Orford, like a dream?

How, as we went, the morning's fitful gleam
Made the bleak "walks" and barren heaths look gay!
Rememberest thou the hour we wiled away

In ferrying over Ore's broad, billowy stream;
And all our converse, held on many a theme,
As at our feet the German Ocean lay?

But, above all, rememberest thou the hour

We gave that NOBLE ROOM; which well may vie,
In its rude grandeur of simplicity,

With any-feudal baron in his power

Could wish to feast in; and, from its high tower,

Beheld, well-pleased, our humble hostelrie!

ORFORD CASTLE.

BEACON for barks that navigate the stream
Of Ore, or Alde, or breast old Ocean's spray:
Land-mark for inland travellers—far away

O'er heath and sheep-walk-as bright morning's beam,
Or evening sunset's richer, mellower gleam
Lights up thy weather-beaten turrets grey;
Still dost thou bear thee bravely in decay,
As if thy by-gone glories were no dream!

E'en now with lingering grandeur thou look`st down
From thy once fortified, embattled hill,
Striving thine ancient office to fulfil;

And though thy keep be now the only crown
Of Orford's desolate and dwindled town,

Seem'st to assert thyself its sovereign still.

THE DEPARTED.

MUCH as we prize the active worth
Of those who, day by day,

Tread with us on this toilsome earth

Its devious, thorny way;

A charm more hallowed and profound, By purer feelings fed,

Imagination casts around

The memory of the dead!

They form the living links-which bind

Our spirits to that state

Of being-pangless, pure, refined,

For which, in faith, we wait.

228

THE DEPARTED.

By them, through holy hope and love,

We feel, in hours serene,

Connected with a world above,

Immortal, and unseen!

"The dead are like the stars by day,
Withdrawn from mortal eye;"

Yet holding unperceived their way
In heaven's unclouded sky.

The mists of earth to us may mar
The splendour of their light;

But they, beyond sun, moon, or star,
Shine on-in glory bright.

In this brief world of chance and change,
Who has not felt and known

How much may alter, and estrange
Hearts fondly deemed our own?

But those whom we lament awhile,
"Not lost, but gone before,"

Doubt cannot darken, sin defile,
Or frailty alter more!