He hears unconsciously of music sweet,
And which, awaking, he would fain repeat;
But vainly tries—as easy 'twere to trace
Echo that hideth still her smiling fairy face.
III.
Some feelings are too shadowy or too deep
To scan or fathom-far less to reveal:
You may describe the harp, but not the sweep
That thrills the ear, or dying tones that steal
Within so softly: that were to express
What words were never made for-powerless
Is speech to tell the hidden secret things,
That come and go as with a spirit's wings.
IV.
And yet, 'tis sweet to commune with our kind
Even with such feeble utterance as we may;
And sweet to feel that many a kindred mind
Needs but a tone, a breath, to flee away
From present things around, and share with ours
Whatever beauties lavish nature showers
Upon her simple votaries and sincere,
Through all the changes of the changeful year.
V.
'Tis sweet to know that they will answer true
To what we cannot tell but by a sign,
That serves remembered pleasures to renew :
Just as a leaf or tendril of the vine
May bear the spirit to some garden fair,
Where flowers perfume, and glad bees fan the air,
While yet the laggard frame which it has fled
Is mid the sights and sounds in cities only bred.
VI.
Perchance these simple notes may one day find A heart in tone to feel them: they may yield A peaceful pleasure to a genial mind;
And bear it to some quiet rural field, From out the haunts of men, to taste awhile Fancy's pure joys, and with her dreams beguile Moments of leisure, that might else be spent In languid listlessness, or discontent.
If e'er they should, my brother pilgrim, learn
To trace in nature's beauties love divine;
In every joy let faith's bright eye discern
The hand that gives; and be it ever thine
To know that hand a Father's!-Oh, delight
To feel Him close around thee; and unite
With all thy pleasures filial sacred love;
And each shall be the pledge of brighter joys above.
VIII.
Let Eve's rich melodies, and purple hues
Bear thee aloft to their exhaustless source; Pray that by grace divine they may diffuse
A holy influence through thy breast, and force Thine heart to pant for purer loftier song, And brighter scenes, angelic hosts among : If evening here be sweet to heart and eye, How sweet the morning of eternity!
THE FIRST AND SECOND BIRTH-PLACE.
WHERE first the Turtle-dove spreads forth her wing,
And vainly strives to soar into the skies;
Where first the nightingale essays to sing
Beneath the moon, in broken melodies;-
There is a charm which breathes around the spot;
A home they love, although they know it not;
And never shall it be, where'er they range, forgot.
II.
Man feels alike: how dear is still the place,
Where, in the season of his youthful glee,
He started faltering on life's chequered race!—
All that the stranger passeth heedlessly
214 THE FIRST AND SECOND BIRTH-PLACE.
Lives in his heart: his first-born hopes were there; Blossoms of promise, which, though nipped by care, Have shed abroad and left their perfume in the air.
III.
And is it not the same of that fresh course,
On which, too often at a distant day,
He enters, drawn by love's constraining force,
To taste the pleasures of a heavenward way
?
Oh, yes! the second birth-place shall be dear,
Hallowed to memory by the contrite tear,
That spake returning love, and filial holy fear.
IV.
Deeper and deeper root it in my heart,
With every vow, uttered or unexpressed,'
6
Which reached thine ear, that I would never part
From thee, my Saviour, whom I then confessed:
Whatever time may rob me of below,
Whatever storm around my path may blow,
May all I purposed then still live within and grow!
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