INDIAN SUMMER, 1828. LIGHT as love's smiles, the silvery mist at morn I love thee, Autumn, for thy scenery ere O, Nature! still I fondly turn to thee, TOWN REPININGS. RIVER! O, river! thou rovest free, Yet all of these scenes, though fair they be, But loses his freedom here, to be Yet not in resentment thy love I resign; I blame not--upbraid not-one motive of thine; Farewell, then, thou loved one- -O! loved but too well, Too deeply, too blindly, for language to tell-Farewell! thou hast trampled love's faith in the dust, Thou hast torn from my bosom its hope and its trust! Yet, if thy life's current with bliss it would swell, I would pour out my own in this last fond farewell! I WILL LOVE HER NO MORE. I WILL love her no more -'t is a waste of the heart, I will love her no more; it is folly to give I will love her no more; it is heathenish thus That the worship of years to its altar hath brought. I will love her no more; for no love is without THEY ARE MOCKERY ALL. THEY are mockery all-those skies, those skies- The other's lashes through; They are mockery all, these flowers of spring, And the love to which we would madly ching, Ay! it is mockery too; The winds are false which the perfume stir, MELODY. WHEN the flowers of Friendship or Love have decay'd, In the heart that has trusted and once been betray'd, Hope cheated too often when life's in its spring, As 'tis said that the swallow the tenement leaves MORNING HYMN. "LET THERE BE LIGHT!" The Eternal spoke, And from the abyss where darkness rode The earliest dawn of nature broke, And light around creation flow'd. Upon a world untouch'd by sin. "Let there be light!" O'er heaven and earth, The Gon who first the day-beam pour'd, Utter'd again his fiat forth, And shed the gospel's light abroad, Flushes the signal-light for prayer; From Gon's bright throne of glory there. THE WESTERN HUNTER TO HIS MISTRESS. WEND, love, with me, to the deep woods, wend, Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, Where no watching eye shall over us bend, Save the blossoms that into thy bower peep. Thou shalt gather from buds of the oriole's hue, Whose flaming wings round our pathway flit, From the saffron orchis and lupin blue, And those like the foam on my courser's bit. One steed and one saddle us both shall bear, One hand of each on the bridle meet; And beneath the wrist that entwines me there, An answering pulse from my heart shall beat. I will sing thee many a joyous lay, As we chase the deer by the blue lake-side, While the winds that over the prairie play Shall fan the cheek of my woodland bride. Our home shall be by the cool, bright streams, Where the beaver chooses her safe retreat, And our hearth shall smile like the sun's warin gleams [meet. Through the branches around our lodge that Then wend with me, to the deep woods wend, Where far in the forest the wild flowers keep, Where no watching eye shall over us bend, Save the blossoms that into thy bower peep. THY NAME. Ir comes to me when healths go round, Are freshly from the goblet breathing; Where care in jostling crowds is rife; In eyes whose spell would once have bound me. It comes to me where cloister'd boughs Are lifted from her shrine to God; THE MYRTLE AND STEEL. ONE bumper yet, gallants, at parting, One toast ere we arm for the fight; Fill round, each to her he loves dearest "T is the last he may pledge her, to-night. The entwining of myrtle and steel! Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid, "Tis in moments like this, when each bosom With its highest-toned feeling is warm, Like the music that's said from the ocean To rise ere the gathering storm, That her image around us should hover, Whose name, though our lips ne'er reveal, We may breathe mid the foam of a bumper, As we drink to the myrtle and steel. Then hey for the myrtle and steel, Then ho for the myrtle and steel, Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid, Now mount, for our bugle is ringing When your sabres the death-blow would deal, Let every true blade that e'er loved a fair maid, Fill round to the myrtle and steel! EPITAPH UPON A DOG. Ax ear that caught my slightest tone, In vigils death alone has broken; Can such in endless sleep be chill'd, And mortal pride disdain to sorrow, Because the pulse that here was still'd May wake to no immortal morrow? Can faith, devotedness, and love, That seem to humbler creatures given To tell us what we owe above, The types of what is due to Heaven,— Can these be with the things that were, Things cherish'd-but no more returning, And leave behind no trace of care, No shade that speaks a moment's mourning? Alas! my friend, of all of worth That years have stolen or years yet leave me, I've never known so much on earth, But that the loss of thine must grieve me. ANACREONTIC. BLAME not the bowl-the fruitful bowl, Whence wit, and mirth, and music spring, And amber drops elysian roll, To bathe young Love's delighted wing. What like the grape OSIRIS gave Makes rigid age so lithe of limb? Illumines memory's tearful wave, And teaches drowning hope to swim? To earth another VENUS give, Like burning thoughts which lovers hoard, Brings all their hidden warmth to lightAre feelings bright, which, in the cup, Though graven deep, appear but dim, Till, fill'd with glowing BACCHUS up, They sparkle on the foaming brim. Each drop upon the first you pour Brings some new tender thought to life, And, as you fill it more and more, The last with fervid soul is rife. The island fount, that kept of old Its fabled path beneath the sea, From earth again rose joyously: Each flower upon its limpid tide, More faithfully than in the wine Our hearts toward each other glide. Then drain the cup, and let thy soul Learn, as the draught delicious flies, Like pearls in the Egyptian's bowl, Truth beaming at the bottom lies. A HUNTER'S MATIN. The curlew's wing hath swept the lake, To drink from the limpid tide. Is rock'd on the swaying trees, While the humbird sips from the harebell's cup, As it bends to the morning breeze. Up, comrades, up! our shallops grate Upon the pebbly strand, And our stalwart hounds impatient wait To spring from the huntsman's hand. SPARKLING AND BRIGHT. SPARKLING and bright in liquid light Does the wine our goblets gleam in, Which a bee would choose to dream in. As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, O! if Mirth might arrest the flight Of Time through Life's dominions, To drink to-night with hearts as light, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, Bit since delight can't tempt the wight, Nor Love himself can hold the elf, We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, As bubbles that swim on the beaker's brim, SEEK NOT TO UNDERSTAND HER. WHY seek her heart to understand, What matters all the nobleness Which in her breast resideth, How many for Despair! Her heart, of whom thou knowest Upon the wind thou throwest: ASK NOT WHY I SHOULD LOVE HER. Ask me not why I should love her: And see there how sweetly rise See, from those sweet windows peeping, Wonder not that looks so winning SHE LOVES, BUT 'TIS NOT ME. SHE loves, but 't is not me she loves: Not me on whom she ponders, When, in some dream of tenderness, Her truant fancy wanders. The forms that flit her visions through Are like the shapes of old, Where tales of prince and paladin On tapestry are told. Man may not hope her heart to win, Be his of common mould. But I-though spurs are won no more Where steel-clad ranks are wheeling I loose the falcon of my hopes Upon as proud a flight As those who hawk'd at high renown, In song-ennobled fight. If daring, then, true love may crown, THY SMILES. "TIs hard to share her smiles with many! And while she is so dear to me, To fear that I, far less than any, Call out her spirit's witchery! To find my inmost heart when near her How can she thus, sweet spendthrift, squander When I but live in those sweet eyes! ין LOVE AND POLITICS. A BIRTH-DAY MEDITATION. ANOTHER year! alas, how swift, Like shadows thrown by clouds that drift Is turn'd within life's volume brief, There are some moments when I feel Had not a right alike to go, But it was love that taught me rhyme, Of words a useless sluggard prove, And often bitter thoughts arise Of what I've lost in loving thee, The gloomy cloud around to see, "Why, what a peasant slave am I," To bow my mind and bend my knee Who takes no thought of mine or me. Thus do my jarring thoughts revolve To dash thine angel image thence; And then for hours and hours I muse Their passionate intensity, Which on wild wing those feelings waft And now again from their gay track I call, as I despondent sit, Once more these truant fancies back, Which round my brain so idly flit; And some I treasure, some I blush To own-and these I try to crushAnd some, too wild for reason's reign, I loose in idle rhyme again. And even thus my moments fly, And even thus my hours decay, And even thus my years slip by, My life itself is wiled away; But distant still the mounting hope, The burning wish with men to cope In aught that minds of iron mould May do or dare for fame or gold. Another year! another year, ALINDA, it shall not be so; On pumps and corners posters stick it, WHAT IS SOLITUDE? NoT in the shadowy wood, Not in the crag-hung glen, Not where the echoes brood In caves untrod by men; Where loitering surges break, Where man hath never stood, Not there is solitude! Birds are in woodland bowers, Talk in earth's secret cells; Breathe ocean's frothing lips, Over the still lake's strand The flower toward it dips; Pluming the mountain's crest, Life tosses in its pines; Coursing the desert's breast, Life in the steed's mane shines. Leave-if thou wouldst be lonely Leave Nature for the crowd; Seek there for one-one only- Vainly that phantom woo'd, |