"Silence!" the brave commander cried;
To that calm word a shriek replied,-
It was the last death-shriek.
-A few appear by morning light,
Preserved upon the tall mast's height:
Oft in my soul I see that sight;
But one dear remnant of the night-
For him in vain I seek.
Six weeks beneath the moving sea
He lay in slumber quietly:
Unforced by wind and wave
To quit the ship for which he died,
(All claims of duty satisfied:)
And there they find him at her side;
And bore him to the grave.
Vain service! Yet not vainly done
For this, if other end were none,
That he who had been cast
Upon a way of life unmeet
For such a gentle soul and sweet,
Should find an undisturbed retreat,
Near what he loved, at last:
That neighbourhood of grove and field,
To him a resting-place should yield,
A meek man and a brave!
The birds shall sing, and ocean make
A mournful murmur for his sake:
And thou, sweet flower, shall sleep and wake
Upon his senseless grave.
ELEGIAC STANZAS.-1824.
O FOR a dirge! But why complain?
Ask rather a triumphal strain
When FERMOR's race is run;
A garland of immortal boughs
To bind around the Christian's brows,
Whose glorious work is done.
We pay a high and holy debt:
No tears of passionate regret
Shall stain this votive lay:
Ill-worthy, Beaumont! were the grief
That flings itself on wild relief
When saints have passed away.
Sad doom, at Sorrow's shrine to kneel,
For ever covetous to feel,
And impotent to bear,
Such once was hers-to think and think
On severed love, and only sink
From anguish to despair!
But nature to its inmost part
Had faith refined, and to her heart
A peaceful cradle given;
Calm as the dew-drops, free to rest
Within a breeze-fanned rose's breast,
Till it exhales to heaven.
Was ever spirit, that could bend
So graciously-that could descend
Another's need to suit,
So promptly from her lofty throne!-
In works of love, in these alone,
How restless, how minute!
Pale was her hue; yet mortal cheek
Ne'er kindled with a livelier streak
When aught had suffered wrong,-
When aught that breathes had felt a wound;
Such look the oppressor might confound,
However proud and strong.
But hushed be every thought that springs
From out the bitterness of things;
Her quiet is secure;
No thorns can pierce her tender feet,
Whose life was like the violet sweet:
As climbing jasmine pure:-
As snow-drop on an infant's grave,
Or lily heaving with the wave
That feeds it and defends;
As vesper, ere the star hath kissed
The mountain-top, or breathed the mist
That from the vale ascends.
Thou takest not away, O Death!
Thou strikest-and absence perisheth,
Indifference is no more;
The future brightens on our sight;
For on the past hath fallen a light
That tempts us to adore.
THIS truly amiable poet and excellent man is a banker in London. He has written but little; that little, however, like Gray's, is truly valuable, and will ever possess charms for readers of taste and feeling.
CHILDHOOD's loved group revisits every scene,
The tangled wood-walk and the tufted green!
Indulgent Memory wakes, and lo, they live!
Clothed with far softer hues than light can give.
Thou first, best friend that Heaven assigns below,
To soothe and sweeten all the cares we know;
Whose glad suggestions still each vain alarm,
When nature fades, and life forgets to charm;
Thee would the Muse invoke!—to thee belong
The sage's precept and the poet's song.
What softened views thy magic glass reveals,
When o'er the landscape Time's meek twilight steals!
As when in ocean sinks the orb of day,
Long on the wave reflected lustres play;
Thy tempered gleams of happiness resigned
Glance on the darkened mirror of the mind.
The school's lone porch, with reverend mosses gray,
Just tells the pensive pilgrim where it lay.
Mute is the bell that rung at peep of dawn,
Quickening my truant feet across the lawn;
Unheard the shout that rent the noon-tide air.
When the slow dial gave a pause to care.
Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear,
Some little friendship, formed and cherished here;
And not the lightest leaf, but trembling teems
With golden visions and romantic dreams!
Down by yon hazel copse, at evening blazed
The gipsy's fagot-there we stood and gazed;
Gazed on her sun-burnt face with silent awe,
Her tattered mantle and her hood of straw;
Her moving lips, her caldron brimming o'er;
The drowsy brood that on her back she bore,
Imps, in the barn, with mousing owlets bred,
From rifled roost at nightly revel fed;
Whose dark eyes flashed through locks of blackest shade,
When in the breeze the distant watch-dog bayed:
And heroes fled the sibyl's muttered call,
Whose elfin prowess scaled the orchard wall,
As o'er my palm the silver piece she drew,
And traced the line of life with searching view,
How throbbed my fluttering pulse with hopes and fears,
To learn the colour of my future years!
Ah, then, what honest triumph flushed my breast;
This truth once known-to bless is to be blest!
We led the bending beggar on his way,
(Bare were his feet, his tresses silver-gray,)
Soothed the keen pangs his aged spirit felt,
And on his tale with mute attention dwelt:
As in his scrip we dropped our little store,
And sighed to think that little was no more,
He breathed his prayer, "Long may such goodness live!" 'Twas all he gave,-twas all he had to give.
THE lark has sung his carol in the sky,
The bees have hummed their noon-tide lullaby!
Still in the vale the village bells ring round;
Still in Llewellyn-hall the jests resound;
For now the caudle-cup is circling there,
Now, glad at heart, the gossips breathe their prayer,
And crowding, stop the cradle to admire
The babe, the sleeping image of his sire.
A few short years, and then those sounds shall hail
The day again, and gladness fill the vale;
So soon the child a youth, the youth a man,
Eager to run the race his fathers ran.
Then the huge ox shall yield the broad sirloin;
The ale now brewed, in floods of amber shine;
And basking in the chimney's ample blaze,
'Mid many a tale told of his boyish days,
The nurse shall cry, of all her ills beguiled,
""Twas on these knees he sat so oft and smiled."
And soon again shall music swell the breeze:
Soon, issuing forth, shall glitter through the trees,
Vestures of nuptial white: and hymns be sung,
And violets scattered round! and old and young,
In every cottage porch, with garlands green,
Stand still to gaze, and gazing, bless the scene;
While, her dark eyes declining, by his side,
Moves in her virgin-veil the gentle bride.
And once, alas! nor in a distant hour, Another voice shall come from yonder tower; When in dim chambers long black weeds are seen, And weeping heard where only joy hath been; When, by his children borne, and from his door Slowly departing, to return no more,
He rests in holy earth with them that went before.
And such is human life; so gliding on,
It glimmers like a meteor, and is gone!
Yet is the tale, brief though it be, as strange,
As full, methinks, of wild and wondrous change,
As any that the wandering tribes require,
Stretched in the desert round their evening fire;
As any sung of old, in hall or bower,
To minstrel-harps at midnight's witching hour!
CHILD of the sun! pursue thy rapturous flight,
Mingling with her thou lovest in fields of light;
And where the flowers of Paradise unfold,
Quaff fragrant nectar from their cups of gold;
There shall thy wings, rich as an evening sky,
Expand and shut with silent ecstasy!
Yet thou wert once a worm, a thing that crept
On the bare earth, then wrought a tomb and slept.
And such is man; soon from his cell of clay
To burst, a seraph in the blaze of day!
O ITALY, how beautiful thou art!
Yet I could weep-for thou art lying, alas!
Low in the dust: and they who come admire thee
As we admire the beautiful in death.
Thine was a dangerous gift-the gift of beauty.
Would thou hadst less, or wert as once thou wast,
Inspiring awe in those who now enslave thee!
-But why despair! Twice hast thou lived already!
Twice shone among the nations of the world,
As the sun shines among the lesser lights
Of heaven, and shalt again. The hour shall come,
When they who think to bind the ethereal spirit,
Who, like the eagle cowering o'er his prey,
Watch with quick eye, and strike and strike again,
If but a sinew vibrate, shall confess
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