The undoubting heart, that breaks with sadness, Absence! is not the soul torn by it "Tis Lethe's gloom, but not its quiet, The pain without the peace of death! LINES, ON REVISITING A SCOTTISH RIVER. AND call they this Improvement? to have changed, My native Clyde, thy once romantic shore, Where Nature's face is banished and estranged, Whose banks, that sweetened May-day's breath before, With sooty exhalations covered o'er; And for the dasied greensward, down thy stream Unsightly brick-lanes smoke, and clanking engines gleam! Speak not to me of swarms the scene sustains; One heart free tasting Nature's breath and bloom Is worth a thousand slaves to Mammon's gains. The hunger and the hope of life to feel, From morn till midnight tasked to earn its little meal. Is this Improvement?- where the human breed Till Toil grows cheaper than the trodden weed, Nor call that evil slight; God has not given For Earth's green face, the untainted air of Heaven, For not alone our frame imbibes a stain Fades in their gloom. And therefore I complain, That thou no more through pastoral scenes shouldst glide, My Wallace's own stream, and once romantic Clyde ! THE "NAME UNKNOWN.” IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK. PROPHETIC pencil! wilt thou trace Or wilt thou write the "Name Unknown, And all my future fate control, Unrivalled and alone? Delicious Idol of my thought: Though sylph or spirit hath not taught Yet musing on my distant fate, To charms unseen I consecrate Thy rosy blush, thy meaning eye, Are ever present to my heart; Thy murmured vows shall yet be mine, Then fly, my days, on rapid wing, A guardian angel unrevealed, And bless the "Name Unknown!' LINES, ON THE CAMP HILL, NEAR HASTINGS. IN the deep blue of eve, Ere the twinkling of stars had begun, Of the skies and the sweet setting sun, I climbed to yon heights, Where the Norman encamped him of old, With his bowmen and knights, And his banner all burnished with gold At the Conqueror's side There his minstrelsy sat harp in hand, In pavilion wide; And they chanted the deeds of Roland. Still the ramparted ground On each turf of that mead Stood the captors of England's domains, That ennobled her breed And high-mettled the blood of her veins. Over hauberk and helm As the sun's setting splendor was thrown, FAREWELL TO LOVE.. I HAD a heart that doted once in Passion's boundless pain, And though the tyrant I abjured, I could not break his chain; But now that Fancy's fire is quenched, and ne'er can burn anew, I've bid to Love, for all my life, adieu! adieu! adieu! I've known, if ever mortal knew, the spells of Beauty's thrall, And if my song has told them not, my soul has felt them all; But Passion robs my peace no more, and Beauty's witching sway Is now to me a star that's fall'n-a dream that's passed away. Hail! welcome tide of life, when no tumultuous billows roll; How wondrous to myself appears this halcyon calm of soul ! The wearied bird blown o'er the deep would sooner quit its shore, Than I would cross the gulf again that time has brought me o'er. Why say they angels feel the flame?-Oh, spirits of the skies! Can love like ours, that dotes on dust, in heavenly bosoms rise?— Ah no! the hearts that best have felt its power, the best can tell, That peace on earth itself begins, when Love has bid farewell. |