There are who strangely love to roam, »
And find in wildest haunts their home;
And some in halls of lordly state,
Who yet are homeless, desolate.
The sailor's home is on the main,
The warrior's, on the tented plain,
The maiden's, in her bower of rest,
The infant's, on his mother's breast;
But where thou art, is home to me,
And home without thee cannot be.
There is no home in halls of pride,
They are too high, and cold, and wide.
No home is by the wanderer found;
'Tis not in place; it hath no bound,
It is a circling atmosphere
Investing all the heart holds dear;
A law of strange attractive force,
That holds the feelings in their course.
It is a presence undefined,
O'ershadowing the conscious mind,
Where love and duty sweetly blend
To consecrate the name of friend;
Where'er thou art, is home to me,
And home without thee cannot be.
The heart has tendrils, like the vine,
Which round another's bosom twine,
Outspringing from the parent tree
Of deeply-planted sympathy,
Whose flowers are hope, its fruits are bliss;
Beneficence its harvest is.—
There are some bosoms, dark and drear,
Which an unwatered desert are:
Yet there a curious eye may trace
Some smiling spot, some verdant place,
Where little flowers, the weeds between,
Spend their soft fragrance all unseen.
Despise them not—for wisdom's toil
Has ne'er disturbed that stubborn soil;
Yet care and culture might have brought
The ore of truth from mines of thought;
And fancy's fairest flowers had bloomed
Where truth and fancy lie entombed.—
Insult him not—his blackest crime
May, in his Maker's eye sublime,
In spite of all thy pride, be less
Than e'en thy daily waywardness:
Than many a sin, and many a stain,
Forgotten, and impressed again.—-
There is, in every human heart,
Some not completely barren part,
Where seeds of love and truth might grow,
And flowers of generous virtue blow;
To plant, to watch, to water there,—
This be our duty—be our care!
And sweet it is the growth to trace
Of worth, of intellect, of grace,
In bosoms where our labours first
Bid the young seed of spring-time burst;
And lead it on, from hour to hour,
To ripen into perfect flower.
Flow, on, pure knowledge! ever flow!
Change nature's face to man below;
A paradise once more disclose--
Make deserts bloom with Sharon's rose;
And, through a Saviour's blood, once shed,
Raise his forlorn and drooping head.
These fine moral stanzas were originally intended for a solemn funeral song in a play of James Shirley's, entitled, The Contention of Ajax and Ulysses. Shirley flourished, as a dramatic writer, early in the reign of Charles I., but he outlived the Restoration. His death happened Oct. 23, 1666, æt. 72. It is said to have been a favourite song with King Charles II.
The glories of our birth and state
Are shadows, not substantial things;
There is no armor against fate :
Death lays his icy hands on kings:
Sceptre and crown
Must tumble down,
And in the dust be equal made
With the poor crooked sithe and spade.
Some men with swords may reap the field,
And plant fresh laurels where they kill;
But their strong nerves at last must yield;
They tame but one another still.
Early or late
And must give up their murmuring breath, When they, pale captives, creep to death.
The garlands wither on your brow;
Then boast no more your mighty deeds: Upon death's purple altar now
See where the victor victim bleeds.
All heads must come
To the cold tomb :
Only the actions of the just
Smell sweet, and blossom, in the dust.
What is death? 'Tis to be free!
No more to love, or hope, or fear;
To join the great equality:
All, all alike are humbled there !
The mighty grave
Wraps lord and slave;
Nor pride nor poverty dares come
Within that refuge-house—the tomb f
Spirit with the drooping wing,
And the ever-weeping eye,
Thou of all earth's kings art King!
Empires at thy footstool lie!
Beneath thee strew'd
Their multitude
Sink like waves upon the shore ;
Storms shall never rouse them more !
What's the grandeur of the earth
To the grandeur round thy throne!
Riches, glory, beauty, birth,
To thy kingdom all have gone.
Before thee stand
The wondrous band,
Bards, heroes, sages, side by side,
Who darken'd nations when they died!
Earth has hosts, but thou canst show
Many a million for her one :
Through thy gates the mortal flow
Has for countless years rolled on :
Back from the tomb
No step has come :
There fixed till the last thunder's sound
Shall bid thy pris'ners be unbound!
TO A FRIEND ON NEW YEAR'S DAY.
Sudden to cease, or gently to decline,
Oh, power of Mercy! may the lot be mine:
Let me not linger on the verge of fate,
Nor weary duty to its utmost date;
Losing, in pain's impatient gloom confined,
Freedom of thought and dignity of mind;
Till pity views, untouched, the parting breath,
And cold indifference adds a pang to death.
Yet if to suffer long my doom is cast,
Let me preserve this temper to the last.
Oh let me still from self my feelings bear,
To sympathize with sorrow's starting tear:
Nor sadden at the smile which joy bestows,
Though far from me her beam ethereal glows.
Let me remember in the gloom of age,
To smile at follies happier youth engage;
See them fallacious, but indulgent spare
The fairy dreams experience cannot share;
Nor view the rising morn with jaundiced eye,
Because for me, no more the sparkling moments fly.
The amiable and sensible writer of the preceding verses, was Mrs. John Hunter, the wife of the celebrated anatomist.
From rosy lips we issue forth,
From east to west, from north to south,
Unseen, unfelt, by night, by day,
Abroad we take our airy way.
We fasten love, we kindle strife
The bitter and the sweet of life.
Piercing and sharp, we wound like steel,
Now smooth as oil, those wounds we heal.
Not strings of pearl are valued more,
Nor gems enchased in golden ore;
Yet thousands of us every day
Worthless and vile are thrown away.
Ye wise! secure with gates of brass
The double doors through which we pass,—
For once escaped, back to our cell
Nor art of man can us compel.
"Riddles are of high antiquity, and were the employment of grave men formerly. The first riddle that we have on record was proposed by Sampson at a wedding feast to the young men of the Philistines, who were invited upon the occasion. The feast lasted seven days; and if they found it out within seven days, Sampson was to give them thirty suits of clothes and thirty sheets; and if they could not guess it, they were to forfeit the same to him. The riddle was Out of the eater came forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness.' He had killed a lion, and left its carcass; on returning soon after, he found a swarm of bees had made use of the skeleton as a hive, and it was full of honey-comb. Struck with the oddness of the circumstance, he made a riddle of it."
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