Page images
PDF
EPUB
[blocks in formation]

O'er moor and mountain green,

O'er the red streamer that heralds the day,
Over the cloudlet dim,

Over the rainbow's rim,
Musical cherub, soar, singing away!

Then, when the gloaming comes,

Low in the heather blooms,

Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be!
Emblem of happiness,

Blest is thy dwelling-place,

O, to abide in the desert with thee!

IX.

EPITHALAMIUM.*

1. I saw two clouds at morning,
Tinged with the rising sun;
And in the dawn they floated on,
And mingled into one;

J. G. C. BRAINARD

I thought that morning cloud was blest,
It moved so sweetly to the west.

2. I saw two Summer currents,

Flow smoothly to their meeting,

And join their course with silent force,

In peace each other greeting;

Calm was their course through banks of green,
While dimpling eddies played between.

3. Such be your gentle motion,

Till life's last pulse shall beat,

Like Summer's beam, and Summer's stream,
Float on, in joy, to meet

A calmer sea, where storms shall cease-
A purer sky, where all is peace.

* EP-I-THA-LA-MI-UM, a nuptial song or poem.

X.

STRENGTH OF AFFECTION.

SHAKSPEARE

Heaven and yourself

Had part in this fair maid, now Heaven hath all;
And all the better is it for the maid;

Your part in her you could not keep from death,
But Heaven keeps His part in eternal life.
The most you sought was her promotion,
For 't was your Heaven, she should be advanced;
And weep ye nów, seeing she is advanced
Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?
O! in this love, you love your child so ill,
That you run mad, seeing that she is well.

XI.

MEMORY OF THE DEPARTED.

W. D. GALLAGEER.

1. When last the April bloom was flinging
Sweet odors on the air of Spring,

In forest aisles thy voice was ringing,
Where thou didst with the red-bird sing:
Again the April bloom is flinging

Sweet odors on the air of Spring,
But now in Heaven thy voice is ringing,
Where thou dost with the angels sing.

2. When last the maple-bud was swelling,
When last the crocus bloomed below,
My heart to thine its love was telling;
Thy soul with mine kept ebb and flow.
Again the maple-bud is swelling,
Again the crocus blooms below;
In Heaven thy heart its love is telling,
But still our souls keep ebb and flow,

XII.

MIND.

AKENSIDE.

The immortal MIND, superior to his fate
Amid the outrage of external things,
Firm as the solid base of this great world,
Rests on its own foundation. Blow, ye winds!
Ye waves! ye thunders! roll your tempests on!
Shake, ye old pillars of the marble sky!

Till all its orbs and all its worlds of fire
Be loosened from their seats; yet still serene,
The unconquered mind looks down upon the wreck;
And ever stronger as the storms advance,

Firm through the closing ruin holds his way,
Where Nature calls him to the destined goal.

XIII.

THE FLIGHT OF TIME.

1. Faintly flow, thou falling river,
Like a dream that dies away;
Down to ocean gliding ever
Keep thy calm unruffled way;
Time, with such a silent motion,
Floats along on wings of air,
To Eternity's dark ocean,

Burying all its treasures there.

J. G. PERCIVAL

2. Roses bloom, and then they wither,

Cheeks are bright, then fade and die,

Shapes of light are wafted hither,

Then, like visions, hurry by:
Quick as clouds at evening driven
O'er the many-colored west,
Years are bearing us to Heaven,

Home of happiness and rest.

[blocks in formation]

Knowledge and wisdom, far from being one,
Have oft times no connection. Knowledge dwells
In heads replete with thoughts of other men;
Wisdom in minds attentive to their own.
Knowledge, a rude unprofitable mass,

The mere materials, with which Wisdom builds,
Till smoothed and squared and fitted to its place,
Does but encumber whom it seems to enrich.
Knowledge is proud, that he has learned so much,
Wisdom is hunble, that he knows no more.

XVI.

FALSEHOOD.

Let falsehood be a stranger to thy lips,

Shame on the policy that first began

HAVARD

To tamper with the heart to hide its thoughts;
And doubly shame on that inglorious tongue
That sold its honesty, and told a lie.

EXERCISE CXXXII.

THE TEMPEST.

GEORGE D. PRENTICE.

1. I never was a man of feeble courage. There are few scenes of either human or elemental strife, upon which I have not looked with a brow of daring. I have stood in the front of the battle when the swords were gleaming and circling around me like fiery serpents in the air. I have seen these things with a swelling soul, that knew not, that recked no danger.

2. But there is something in the thunder's voice, that makes me tremble like a child. I have tried to overcome this unmanly weakness. I have called pride to my aid; I have sought for moral courage in the lessons of philosophy, but it avails me nothing. At the first low moaning of the distant cloud, my heart shrinks and dies within me.

3. My involuntary dread of thunder had its origin in an incident that occurred when I was a boy of ten years. I had a little cousin, a girl of the same age as myself, who had been the constant companion of my youth. Strange, that, after the lapse of many years, that occurrence should be so familiar to me! I can see the bright young creature, her eyes flashing like a beautiful gem, her free locks streaming as in joy upon the rising gale, and her cheeks glowing, like a ruby, through a wreath of transparent snow.

4. Her voice had the melody and joyousness of a bird's, and when she bounded over the wooded hill, or fresh green valley, shouting a glad answer to every voice of nature, and clapping her little hands in the ecstasy of young existence, she looked as if breaking away, like a free nightingale, from the earth, and going off where all things are beautiful like her.

5. It was a morning in the middle of August. The little girl had been passing some days at my father's house, and

« PreviousContinue »