Ring out false pride in place and blood, Ring in the love of truth and right, Ring out old shapes of foul disease, Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring in the valiant man and free, ALFRED TENNYSON. OH! WHY SHOULD THE SPIRIT OF MORTAL BE OH! why should the spirit of mortal be proud? The leaves of the oak and the willow shall fade, And the young and the old, and the low and the high, The infant and mother attended and loved; The hand of the king that the sceptre hath borne ; The peasant, whose lot was to sow and to reap; So the multitude goes, like the flower or the weed For we are the same our fathers have been; The thoughts we are thinking our fathers would think; They loved, but the story we cannot unfold; They died, ay! they died; we things that are now, Meet the things that they met on their pilgrimage road. And the smile and the tear, the song and the dirge, Shall follow each other, like surge upon surge. 'Tis the wink of an eye, 'tis the draught of a breath, From the blossom of health to the paleness of death, From the gilded saloon to the bier and the shroudOh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud? THE OCEAN-AN IMAGE OF ETERNITY. ROLL on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! His steps are not upon thy paths-thy fields And shake him from thee; the vile strength he wields Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies, Howling in agony, where haply lies His petty hope in some near port or bay, And dashest him again to earth-there let him lay. The armaments which thunder-strike the walls And monarchs tremble in their capitals; These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, Thy shores are empires changed in all save thee: Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage-what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts: not so thouUnchangeable, save to thy wild waves' playTime writes no wrinkle on thine azure browSuch as creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now. Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomless, alone. LORD BYRON. MARY IN HEAVEN. THOU lingering star! with lessening ray, Again thou usher'st in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. F O Mary dear departed shade! Where is thy blissful place of rest? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? That sacred hour can I forget Can I forget the hallow'd grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love? Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past; Thy image at our last embrace Ah, little thought we 'twas our last! Ayr gurgling kiss'd his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening, green; The flowers sprang wanton to be prest, Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, My Mary dear departed shade ! Where is thy blissful place of rest? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid ? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? ROBERT BURNS. |