Of one,—the darling of a thousand hearts.
Yet in the chamber, o'er some graceful task
When delicately bending, oft unseen,
Thy mother marks then with that musing glance
That looks through cunning time, and sees thee stretch'd
A shade of being, shrouded for the tomb.
The Day is come, led gently on by Death;
With pillow'd head all gracefully reclined,
And grape-like curls in languid clusters wreath'd,
Within a cottage room she sits to die;
Where from the window, in a western view,
Majestic ocean rolls.—A summer eve
Shines o'er the earth, and all the glowing air
Stirs faintly, like a pulse; against the shore
The waves unrol them with luxurious joy,
While o'er the midway deep she looks, where like
A sea god glares the everlasting Sun
O'er troops of billows marching in his beam!—
From earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, her eyes
Are lifted, bright with wonder and with awe,
Till through each vein reanimation rolls!
'Tis past; and now her filmy glance is fix'd
Upon the heavens, as though her spirit gazed
On that immortal world, to which 'tis bound:
The sun hath sunk.—her soul hath fled without
A pang, and left her lovely in her death,
And beautiful as an embodied dream.
MORTALITY.
All that we love and feel on Nature's face,
Bear dim relations to our common doom.
The clouds that blush, and die a beamy death,
Or weep themselves away in rain,—the streams
That flow along in dying music,—leaves
That fade, and drop into the frosty arms
Of Winter, there to mingle with dead flowers,—
Are all prophetic of our own decay.
BEAUTY
How oft, as unregarded on a throng
Of lovely creatures, in whose liquid eyes
The heart-warm feelings bathe, I've look'd
With all a Poet's passion, and have wish'd
That years might never pluck their graceful smiles—
How often Death, as with a viewless wand,
Has touch'd the scene, and witch'd it to a tomb!
Where Beauty dwindled to a ghastly wreck,
And spirits of the Future seem'd to cry,—
Thus will it be when Time has wreak'd revenge.
MELANCHOLY.
When mantled with the melancholy glow
Of eve, she wander'd oft: and when the wind,
Like a stray infant down autumnal dales
Roam'd wailingly, she loved to mourn and muse:
To commune with the lonely orphan flowers,
And through sweet Nature's ruin trace her own.
VISION OF HEAVEN.
An empyrean infinitely vast
And irridescent, roof'd with rainbows, whose
Transparent gleams like water-shadows shone,
Before me lay: Beneath this dazzling vault—
I felt, but cannot paint the splendour there!
Glory, beyond the wonder of the heart
To dream, around interminably blazed.
A spread of fields more beautiful than skies
Flush'd with the flowery radiance of the west;
Valleys in greenest glory, deck'd with trees
That trembled music to the ambrosial airs
That chanted round them,—vein'd with glossy streams,
That gush'd, like feelings from a raptured soul:
Such was the scenery;—with garden walks,
Delight of angels and the blest, where flowers
Perennial bloom, and leaping fountains breathe,
Like melted gems, a gleaming mist around!
Here fruits for ever ripe, on radiant boughs,
Droop temptingly; here all that eye and heart
Enrapts, in pure perfection is enjoy'd;
And here o'er flowing paths with agate paved,
Immortal Shapes meander and commune.
While with permissive gaze I glanced the scene,
A whelming tide of rich-toned music roll'd,
Waking delicious echoes, as it wound
From Melody's divinest fount! All heaven
Glow'd bright, as, like a viewless river, swell'd
The deepening music!—Silence came again!
And where I gazed, a shrine of cloudy fire
Flamed redly awful; round it Thunder walk'd,
And from it Lightning look'd out most sublime!
Here throned in unimaginable bliss
And glory, sits The One Eternal Power,
Creator, Lord, and Life of All: Again,
Stillness ethereal reign'd, and forth appear'd
Elysian creatures robed in fleecy light,
Together flocking from celestial haunts,