Betrayal

I thought of Thee, my partner and my guide,
As being past away. Vain sympathies!
For, backward, Duddon, as I cast my eyes,
I see what was, and is, and will abide;
Still glides the Stream, and shall for ever glide;
The Form remains, the Function never dies;
While we, the brave, the mighty, and the wise,
We Men, who in our morn of youth defied
The elements, must vanish; be it so!
Enough, if something from our hands have power
To live, and act, and serve the future hour;
And if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
Through love, through hope, and faith's transcendent dower,
We feel that we are greater than we know.

FELICIA HEMANS.



Leaves have their time to fall,
And flowers to wither at the North-wind's breath,
And stars to set: but all,
Thou hast all seasons for thine own, O Death!

Day is for mortal care,
Eve for glad meetings at the joyous hearth,
Night for the dreams of sleep, the voice of prayer,
But all for thee, thou mightiest of the earth!

The banquet has its hour,
The feverish hour of mirth and song and wine:
There comes a day for grief's overwhelming shower,
A time for softer tears: but all are thine.

Youth and the opening rose
May look like things too glorious for decay,
And smile at thee! - but thou art not of those
That wait the ripen'd bloom to seize their prey!



"FRONDES EST UBI DECIDANT."

There is a path that leads
Through purple iron-weeds,
By button-bush and mallow
Along a creek;
A path that wildflowers hallow,
That wild birds seek;
Roofed thick with eglantine
And grape and trumpet-vine.

This side, blackberries sweet
Glow cobalt in the heat;
That side, a creamy yellow,
In summertime
The pawpaws slowly mellow;
And autumn's prime
Strews red the Chickasaw,
Persimmon brown and haw.

The glittering dragon-fly,
A wingéd flash, goes by;
And tawny wasp and hornet
Seem gleams that drone;
The beetle, like a garnet,
Slips from the stone;
And butterflies float there,
Spangling with gold the air.

Here the brown thrashers hide,
The chat and cat-bird chide;
The blue kingfisher houses
Ab...

In the hour of twilight shadows
The Pilgrim sire looked out;
He thought of the "bloudy Salvages"
That lurked all round about,
Of Wituwamet's pictured knife
And Pecksuot's whooping shout;
For the baby's limbs were feeble,
Though his father's arms were stout.

His home was a freezing cabin,
Too bare for the hungry rat;
Its roof was thatched with ragged grass,
And bald enough of that;
The hole that served for casement
Was glazed with an ancient hat,
And the ice was gently thawing
From the log whereon he sat.

Along the dreary landscape
His eyes went to and fro,

The trees all clad in icicles,
The streams that did not flow;
A sudden thought flashed o'er him, -
A dream of long ago, -
He smote his leathern jerkin,
An...

Oh, when I found that Death had set
His awful stamp on thee,
Deserted on Life's stormy shore,
I thought that Time could have in store
Not one more shaft for me.

Long I had watched thy lingering bloom
That brightened 'mid decay;
And then its eloquent appeal
Would ask my heart if death could steal
Such loveliness away.

And oh! could pure unsullied worth
Or peerless beauty save,
We had not stood as mourners here,
And shed the unavailing tear
O'er thy untimely grave.

But we have seen thee lowly laid,
And I am here alone;
Each morn I shuddering wake to feel
The consciousness around me steal,
That all my hopes are flown.

All, did I say? Ingrate indeed!
Oh, be the thought forgiven;
Has he not hopes and inte...

Eight of 'em hyeah all tol' an' yet
Dese eyes o' mine is wringin' wet;
My haht's a-achin' ha'd an' so',
De way hit nevah ached befo';
My soul's a-pleadin', "Lawd, give back
Dis little lonesome baby black,
Dis one, dis las' po' he'pless one
Whose little race was too soon run."

Po' Little Jim, des fo' yeahs ol'
A-layin' down so still an' col'.
Somehow hit don' seem ha'dly faih,
To have my baby lyin' daih
Wi'dout a smile upon his face,
Wi'dout a look erbout de place;
He ust to be so full o' fun
Hit don' seem right dat all's done, done.

Des eight in all but I don' caih,
Dey wa'nt a single one to spaih;
De worl' was big, so was my haht,
An' dis hyeah baby owned hit's paht;
De house was po', dey clothes was rough,
But daih was me...

Fold the little waxen hands
Lightly.    Let your warmest tears
Speak regrets, but never fears, -
    Heaven understands!
Let the sad heart, o'er the tomb,
Lift again and burst in bloom
Fragrant with a prayer as sweet
As the lily at your feet.

Bend and kiss the folded eyes -
They are only feigning sleep
While their truant glances peep
    Into Paradise.
See, the face, though cold and white,
Holds a hint of some delight
E'en with Death, whose finger-tips
Rest upon the frozen lips.

When, within the years to come,
Vanished echoes live once more -
Pattering footsteps on the floor,
    And the sounds of home, -
Let your arms in fancy fold
Little Harlie as of old -
As of old and as he waits
At the City's golden gates.

Ladies, and youths that in their favour bask,
With mocking smiles come round me: Prithee, why,
Why dost thou with an unknown language cope,
Love-riming? Whence thy courage for the task?
Tell us--so never frustrate be thy hope,
And the best thought still to thy thinking fly!
Thus me they mock: Thee other streams, they cry,
Thee other shores, another sea demands
Upon whose verdant strands
Are budding, even this moment, for thy hair
Immortal guerdon, bays that will not die:
An over-burden on thy back why bear?--
Song, I will tell thee; thou for me reply:
My lady saith--and her word is my heart--
This is Love's mother-tongue, and fits his part.

    Some books are lies frae end to end,
    And some great lies were never penn'd:
    Ev'n ministers, they ha'e been kenn'd,
    In holy rapture,
    A rousing whid, at times, to vend,
    And nail't wi' Scripture.

    But this that I am gaun to tell,
    Which lately on a night befel,
    Is just as true's the Deil's in h--ll
    Or Dublin-city;
    That e'er he nearer comes oursel
    'S a muckle pity.

    The Clachan yill had made me canty,
    I was na fou, but just had plenty;
    I stacher'd whyles, but yet took tent ay
    To free the ditches;
    An' hillocks, stanes, and bushes, kenn'd ay
    Frae ghaists an' witches.

    The rising moon began to glow'r
    The distant Cumnock hills out-owre:
    To count her ho...

Thou who comest from on high,

Who all woes and sorrows stillest,
Who, for twofold misery,

Hearts with twofold balsam fillest,
Would this constant strife would cease!

What are pain and rapture now?
Blissful Peace,

To my bosom hasten thou!

On Cupids bowe how are my heart-strings bent,
That see my wracke, and yet embrace the same!
When most I glory, then I feele most shame;
I willing run, yet while I run repent;
My best wits still their own disgrace inuent:
My very inke turns straight to Stellas name;
And yet my words, as them my pen doth frame,
Auise them selues that they are vainely spent:
For though she passe all things, yet what is all
That vnto me, who fare like him that both
Lookes to the skies and in a ditch doth fall?
O let me prop my mind, yet in his growth,
And not in nature for best fruits vnfit.
Scholler, saith Loue, bend hitherward your wit.

[The scenery of Gotthardt is here personified.]

To the solemn abyss leads the terrible path,
The life and death winding dizzy between;
In thy desolate way, grim with menace and wrath,
To daunt thee the spectres of giants are seen;
That thou wake not the wild one [20], all silently tread
Let thy lip breathe no breath in the pathway of dread!

High over the marge of the horrible deep
Hangs and hovers a bridge with its phantom-like span, [21]
Not by man was it built, o'er the vastness to sweep;
Such thought never came to the daring of man!
The stream roars beneath late and early it raves
But the bridge, which it threatens, is safe from the waves.

Black-yawning a portal, thy soul to affright,
Like the gate to the kingdom, the fiend for the king
Yet bey...

Upon Hearing That His Name Would Be Transmitted To Posterity In Dr. Swift's Works.
By William Dunkin


Well! now, since the heat of my passion's abated,
That the Dean hath lampoon'd me, my mind is elated: -
Lampoon'd did I call it? - No - what was it then?
What was it? - 'Twas fame to be lash'd by his pen:
For had he not pointed me out, I had slept till
E'en doomsday, a poor insignificant reptile;
Half lawyer, half actor, pert, dull, and inglorious,
Obscure, and unheard of - but now I'm notorious:
Fame has but two gates, a white and a black one;
The worst they can say is, I got in at the back one:
If the end be obtain'd 'tis equal what portal
I enter, since I'm to be render'd immortal:
So clysters applied to the anus, 'tis said,
By skilful physicians, giv...

Shepherd of Israel! o'er Thy fold
How sweet Thy guardian care,
To them invisible indeed,
Yet present everywhere.

Thy crook still points to "pastures green,"
When rugged paths they see,
Beside "still waters" bids them rest,
And cast their care on Thee.

The "stranger's voice" thou, Lord, canst teach
Their watchful ears to know,
And make their "peace," their heavenly peace,
Like boundless waters flow.

When round this thorny world we stray
And find no place of rest,
Then come like "doves unto the ark,"
Faint, wearied, and oppressed,

Thy gentle hand is soon put forth
Each wanderer to receive;
Thou bindest up the broken heart,
And bidd'st the sinner live.

Why should we fear the storms of time?
Thy word their for...

    I cannot echo the old wish to die at morn, as darkness strays!
    We have been glad together greeting some new-born radiant days,
    The earth would hold me, every day familiar things
            Would weigh me fast,
    The stir, the touch of morn, the bird that on swift wings
            Goes flitting past.
    Some flower would lift to me its tender tear-wet face, and send its breath
    To whisper of the earth, its beauty and its grace,
            And combat death.
    It would be light, and I would see in thy dear eyes
            The sorrow grow.
    Love, could I lift my own, undimmed, to paradise
            And leave thee so!
    A thousand cords would hold me down to this low sphere,
            When thou didst grieve;
    Ah! should death come upo...

Ah, did you once see Shelley plain,
And did he stop and speak to you?
And did you speak to him again?
How strange it seems, and new!

But you were living before that,
And you are living after,
And the memory I started at
My starting moves your laughter!

I crossed a moor, with a name of its own
And a certain use in the world no doubt,
Yet a hand’s-breadth of it shines alone
’Mid the blank miles round about:

For there I picked up on the heather
And there I put inside my breast
A moulted feather, an eagle-feather
Well, I forget the rest.

In o'er-strict calyx lingering,
Lay music's bud too long unblown,
Till thou, Beethoven, breathed the spring:
Then bloomed the perfect rose of tone.

O Psalmist of the weak, the strong,
O Troubadour of love and strife,
Co-Litanist of right and wrong,
Sole Hymner of the whole of life,

I know not how, I care not why, -
Thy music sets my world at ease,
And melts my passion's mortal cry
In satisfying symphonies.

It soothes my accusations sour
'Gainst thoughts that fray the restless soul:
The stain of death; the pain of power;
The lack of love 'twixt part and whole;

The yea-nay of Freewill and Fate,
Whereof both cannot be, yet are;
The praise a poet wins too late
Who starves from earth into a star;

The lies that serve...

Awhile I bloomed, a happy flower,
Till love approached one fatal hour,
And made my tender branches feel
The wounds of his avenging steel.
Then lost I fell, like some poor willow
That falls across the wintry billow!