Before an ear did hear thee, thou didst mourn,
Prophet of sorrows, o'er a race unborn;
Waiting, thou mighty minister of death,
Lonely thy work, ere man had drawn his breath.
At last thou didst it well! The dread command
Came, and thou swept'st to death the breathing
land;
And then once more, unto the silent heaven
Thy lone and melancholy voice was given.
And though the land is throng'd again, O Sea!
Strange sadness touches all that goes with thee.
The small bird's plaining note, the wild, sharp call,
Share thy own spirit: it is sadness all!
How dark and stern upon thy waves looks down
Yonder tall cliff-he with the iron crown.
And see those sable pines along the steep,
Are come to join thy requiem, gloomy deep!
Like stoled monks they stand and chant the dirge
Over the dead, with thy low beating surge.
INTIMATIONS OF IMMORTALITY.
A voice within us speaks the startling word,
"Man, thou shalt never die!" Celestial voices
Hymn it around our souls: according harps,
By angel fingers touch'd when the mild stars
Of morning sang together, sound forth still
The song of our great immortality!
Thick, clustering orbs, and this our fair domain,
The tall, dark mountains, and the deep-toned seas,
Join in this solemn, universal song.
-O, listen, ye, our spirits! drink it in
From all the air! 'Tis in the gentle moonlight;
'Tis floating in day's setting glories; night,
Wrapp'd in her sable robe, with silent step
Comes to our bed and breathes it in our ears;
Night and the dawn, bright day and thoughtful eve,
All time, all bounds, the limitless expanse,
As one vast, mystic instrument, are touch'd
By an unseen, living Hand, and conscious chords
Quiver with joy in this great jubilee :
-The dying hear it; and as sounds of earth
Grow dull and distant, wake their passing souls
To mingle in this heavenly harmony.
THOU little bird, thou dweller by the sea,
Why takest thou its melancholy voice?
And with that boding cry
Along the waves dost thou fly?
O! rather, bird, with me
Through the fair land rejoice!
Thy flitting form comes ghostly dim and pale,
As driven by a beating storm at sea;
Thy cry is weak and scared,
As if thy mates had shared The doom of us: Thy wail
What does it bring to me?
Thou call'st along the sand, and haunt'st the surge
Restless and sad: as if, in strange accord
With the motion and the roar
Of waves that drive to shore,
One spirit did ye urge-
The Mystery-the Word.
Of thousands, thou both sepulchre and pall,
Old ocean, art! A requiem o'er the dead,
From out thy gloomy cells
A tale of mourning tells-
Tells of man's wo and fall,
His sinless glory fled.
Then turn thee, little bird, and take thy flight Where the complaining sea shall sadness bring Thy spirit never more.
Come, quit with me the shore,
For gladness and the light
Where birds of summer sing.
MR. WILDE was born in Baltimore in 1789. He was for many years one of the Representatives of the State of Georgia in Congress, and is now a lawyer in Augusta. He is known in the literary world principally by his very ingenious and elegant "Researches and Conjectures concerning Torquato Tasso," published in 1841.
My life is like the summer rose
That opens to the morning sky,
But ere the shades of evening close,
Is scattered on the ground-to die!
Yet on the rose's humble bed
The sweetest dews of night are shed,
As if she wept the waste to see-
But none shall weep a tear for me!
My life is like the autumn leaf
That trembles in the moon's pale ray,
Its hold is frail-its date is brief,
Restless-and soon to pass away!
Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
The parent tree will mourn its shade,
The winds bewail the leafless tree,
But none shall breathe a sigh for me!
My life is like the prints, which feet
Have left on Tampa's desert strand;
Soon as the rising tide shall beat,
All trace will vanish from the sand;
Yet, as if grieving to efface
All vestige of the human race,
On that lone shore loud moans the sea,
But none, alas! shall mourn for me!
THE author of "Hadad," "Demethia" "the Judgment," and other poems, died at New Haven, Connecticut, the place of his nativity, on the second day of January, 1841, in the fifty-second year of his age.
ROMAN CHANT TO THE VIRGIN.
O, HOLY VIRGIN, call thy child;
Her spirit longs to be with thee;
For, threatening, lower those skies so mild,
Whose faithless day-star dawned for me.
From tears released to speedy rest,
From youthful dreams which all beguiled,
To quiet slumber on thy breast,
O, holy Virgin, call thy child.
Joy from my darkling soul is fled,
And haggard phantoms haunt me wild;
Despair assails, and Hope is dead:
O, holy Virgin, call thy child.
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