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Death darkens his eye and unplumes his wings,
Yet his sweetest song is the last he sings.
Live so, my love, that when death shall come,
Swanlike and sweet it may waft thee home.

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In joyous youth, what soul hath never known Thought, feeling, taste, harmonious to its own? Who hath not paused while beauty's pensive eye Asked from his heart the homage of a sigh? Who hath not owned, with rapture-smitten frame, The power of grace, the magic of a name?

There be, perhaps, who barren hearts avow, Cold as the rocks on Torneo's hoary brow: There be, whose loveless wisdom never failed, In self-adoring pride securely mailed ;But, triumph not, ye peace-enamored few! Fire, nature, genius, never dwelt with you! For you no fancy consecrates the scene Where rapture uttered vows, and wept between : 'Tis yours, unmoved, to sever and to meet; No pledge is sacred, and no home is sweet!

Who that would ask a heart to dullness wed, The waveless calm, the slumber of the dead? No; the wild bliss of nature needs alloy, And fear and sorrow fan the fire of joy! And say without our hopes, without our fears, Without the home that plighted love endears, Without the smile from partial beauty won, Oh! what were man ?-a world without a sun! Till hymen brought his love-delighted hour, There dwelt no joy in Eden's rosy bower! In vain the viewless seraph lingering there, At starry midnight charmed the silent air: In vain the wild-bird caroled on the steep, To hail the sun, slow-wheeling from the deep; In vain, to soothe the solitary shade, Aerial notes in mingling measure played; The summer wind that shook the spangled tree, The whispering wave, the murmur of the bee;

Still slowly passed the melancholy day,

And still the stranger wist not where to stray,The world was sad !-the garden was a wild! And man, the hermit, sighed-till woman smiled!

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Fair freedom has a thousand charms to show,
That slaves, howe'er contented, never know.
The mind attains, beneath her happy reign,
The growth that nature meant she should attain
The varied fields of science, ever new,
Opening and wider opening on her view,
She ventures onward with a prosperous force,
While no base fear impedes her in her course.
Religion, richest favor of the skies,

Stands most revealed before the freeman's eyes:
No shades of superstition blot the day,
Liberty chases all that gloom away;
The soul emancipated, unoppressed,

Free to prove all things and hold fast the best,
Learns much; and to a thousand listening minds
Communicates with joy the good she finds;
Courage in arms, and ever prompt to show
His manly forehead to the fiercest foe:
Glorious in war, but for the sake of peace,
His spirits rising as his toils increase,
Guards well what arts and industry have won,
And Freedom claims him for her firstborn son.
Slaves fight for what were better cast away-
The chain that binds them, and a tyrant's sway
But they that fight for freedom, undertake
The noblest cause mankind can have at stake:
Religion, virtue, truth, whate'er we call
A blessing freedom is the pledge of all.
Oh liberty! the prisoner's pleasing dream,
The poet's muse, his passion, and his theme;
Genius is thine, and thou art fancy's nurse;
Lost without thee the ennobling powers of verse;
Heroic song from thy sweet touch acquires
Its clearest tone, the rapture it inspires:

Place me where winter breathes his keenest air,
And I will sing, if liberty be there;

And I will sing at liberty's dear feet,

In Afric's torrid clime, or India's fiercest heat.

36. THE GRAVES OF THE PATRIOTS.-Percival.

Here rest the great and good-here they repose
After their generous toil.
A sacred band,

They take their sleep together, while the year
Comes with its early flowers to deck their graves,
And gathers them again, as winter frowns.
Theirs is no vulgar sepulchre; green sods
Are all their monument; and yet it tells
A nobler history than pillared piles,
Or the eternal pyramids. They need
No statue nor inscription to reveal

Their greatness. It is round them; and the joy
With which their children tread the hallowed ground
That holds their venerated bones, the peace

That smiles on all they fought for, and the wealth
That clothes the land they rescued, these, though mute,
As feeling ever is when deepest, these

Are monuments more lasting than the fanes

Reared to the kings and demi-gods of old.

Touch not the ancient elms, that bend their shade

Over their lowly graves; beneath their boughs

There is a solemn darkness, even at noon,
Suited to such as visit at the shrine
Of serious liberty. No factious voice
Called them unto the field of generous fame,
But the poor consecrated love of home.
No deeper feeling sways us, when it wakes
In all its greatness. It has told itself
To the astonished gaze of awestruck kings,
At Marathon, at Bannockburn, and here,
When first our patriots sent the invader back
Broken and cowed. Let these green elms be all
To tell us where they fought, and where they lie.
Their feelings were all nature, and they need
No art to make them known. They live in us,
While we are like them, simple, hardy, bold,
Worshiping notning but our own pure hearts,

37.

And the one universal Lord. They need
No column, pointing to the heaven they sought,
To tell us of their home. The heart itself,
Left to its own free purpose, hastens there,
And there alone reposes.

INFLUENCE OF HOPE AT THE CLOSE OF LIFE.-Campbell

Unfading hope! when life's last embers burn,
When soul to soul, and dust to dust return!
Heaven to thy charge resigns the awful hour!
Oh! then, thy kingdom comes! Immortal power!
What though each spark of earthborn rapture fly!
The quivering lip, pale cheek, and closing eye!
Bright to the soul thy seraph hands convey
The morning dream of life's eternal day—
Then, then, the triumph and the trance begin!
And all the phoenix spirit burns within!
Oh! deep-enchanting prelude to repose,
The dawn of bliss, the twilight of our woes!
Yet half I hear the panting spirit sigh,
It is a dread-an awful thing to die!
Mysterious worlds! untraveled by the sun,
Where Time's far wandering tide has never run,
From your unfathomed shades, and viewless spheres,
A warning comes unheard by other ears—
'Tis heaven's commanding trumpet long and loud
Like Sinai's thunder, pealing from the cloud!
While nature hears with terror mingled trust,
The shock that hurls her fabric to the dust;
And, like the trembling Hebrew when he trod
The roaring waves, and called upon his God,
With mortal terrors clouds immortal bliss,
And shrieks, and hovers o'er the dark abyss!
Daughter of faith, awake! arise! illume
The dread unknown, the chaos of the tomb!
Melt, and dispel, ye spectre-doubts, that roll
Cimmerian darkness on the parting soul!
Fly, like the moon-eyed herald of dismay,
Chased on his night-steed by the star of day!
The strife is o'er!-the pangs of nature close,
And life's last rapture triumphs o'er her woes.
Hark! as the spirit eyes, with eagle gaze,
The noon of heaven undazzled by the blaze,

On heavenly wings that waft her to the sky
Float the sweet tones of starborn melody:
Wild as the hallowed anthem sent to hail
Bethlehem's shepherds in the lonely vale,
When Jordan hush'd his waves, and midnight still
Watched on the holy towers of Zion hill.

38.

ADDRESS TO SCEPTICS.- -Campbell.

Are these the pompous tidings ye proclaim,
Lights of the world and demi-gods of fame?
Is this your triumph-this your proud applause,
Children of truth, and champions of her cause?
For this hath science searched, on weary wing,
By shore and sea,—each mute and living thing?
Launched with Iberia's pilot from the steep,
To worlds unknown, and isles beyond the deep!
Or round the cope her living chariot driven
And wheeled in triumph through the signs of heaven!
Oh! star-eyed science, hast thou wandered there,
To waft us home the message of despair!

Then bind the palm thy sage's brow to suit,
Of blasted leaf, and death-distilling fruit!
Ah me! the laureled wreath that murder rears,
Blood-nursed, and watered by the widow's tears,
Seems not so foul, so tainted, and so dread,

As waves the night-shade round the sceptic's head.
What is the bigot's torch, the tyrant's chain?
I smile on death if heavenward hope remain!
But if the warring winds of nature's strife
Be all the faithless charter of my life,
If chance awaked, inexorable power!
This frail and feverish being of an hour;

Doomed o'er the world's precarious scene to sweep,
Swift as the tempest travels on the deep,
To know delight but by her parting smile,
And toil, and wish, and weep a little while;
Then melt, ye elements! that formed in vain
This troubled pulse and visionary brain!
Fade, ye wild flowers! memorials of my doom;
And sing, ye stars! that light me to the tomb.
Truth! ever lovely-since the world began,
The foe of tyrants, and the friend of man,-

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