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MOODS OF MIND.

I.

A SUDDEN gloom came o'er me; A gathering throng of fears Enshrouded all before me,

And through the mist of tears

I saw the coming years.

II.

'Tis strange how transient sorrow
Can mortal sight delude;
To-day is dark-to-morrow
Shall no dull shade intrude

To tinge a brighter mood.

III.

I heard the low winds sighing
Above the cheerless earth,

And deem'd the hope of dying
Was all that life was worth,

And scoffed at human mirth.

IV.

From that wild dream awaking, And through the clouds of care

A mental sunshine breaking,

I marvelled how despair

Could haunt a world so fair.

SONNET.

TO A FRIEND IN LOVE.

BELIEVE me, dearest friend, 'twere nobler far

To scorn the prize for which thy soul hath yearned,
Than tamely feed a passion proudly spurned

By one whom thou hast worshipped as a star.
Oh! live not thus eternally at war

With loftier hopes! Before thy young veins burned
With love's sweet poison, who like thee discerned
The glad earth's glory, or so laughed at care?
Arrest then quickly this delirious fever,
Nor breathe again an unavailing sigh;

Forget a cold, disdainful heart for ever;

Seek the green meadows and the mountains high
And crystal rivers. Feast thine amorous eye
On Nature's charms, for she repulseth never.

SONNET-MORNING.

WHEN to my fevered brain, the long drear night
No balm hath brought, and restless and alone
I've paced the silent fields, till glittering bright
O'er the green orient mount the fresh day shone ;
How have I joyed to mark yon hoary Tower
Unfolding slowly, 'neath the morning beams,
His misty mantle grey!-In such an hour,
To Contemplation's eye glad Nature seems
Most holy, and the troubled heart is still.—
The vocal grove, the sky-reflecting lake,
The cheerful plain, and softly-shadowed hill,
To loftier dreams are ministrant, and wake
Unutterable love for this fair Earth,
And silent bliss, more exquisite than mirth.

ON GOING HOME.

[WRITTEN IN INDIA, JANUARY, 1835.]

THE Hooghly is now covered with the stately ships of England. It is the season for going home! They whom fortune has blessed, and whose term of exile is expired, are anticipating the joy of once more greeting the faces of early friends, and the green hills and valleys on which the morning of existence shed its cheerful light. They are preparing for an eventful but happy change. They are entering upon a fresh chapter of the book of life. Oh! with what yearning hearts do we turn to those yet unread pages to which the finger of Hope directs us! I hear around me many voices that speak of home and happiness. I shall soon cease to hear them-perhaps for ever! They will pass, like the wind, into happier regions, and breathe in other ears their old familiar music. The fate of these emancipated exiles awakens no ungenerous feeling in my heart, and yet it aches with sorrow when I listen to their home-anticipations. They are intoxicated with delight, while I sicken with despair. They are like boys at school when their long-looked-for holidays have arrived. But he who still lingers on this distant shore, is like an unhappy child who remains in the same dreary and detested place, when his more fortunate playmates have departed homewards.

But amidst all the pleasurable excitements that stir the heart of the exile when about to revisit his native land, there are moments of occasional thoughtfulness and sadness and apprehension which render his fate far less enviable than that of the homereturning school-boy. The spirit of the latter is bright and buoyant. His hopes are unclouded, his pleasure is unalloyed.

The former, on the other hand, has seen too much of human life He is afraid of his own

to trust entirely to its enchantments.

happiness.

He can scarcely believe it real or well founded. It is too like a dream. There is something strange and ominous in the unaccustomed elation of his heart, and he varies and mingles his emotions like a child that laughs and cries in the same breath. These mixed feelings are sometimes succeeded by an unqualified mistrust and forlorn forebodings. He reverts to the innumerable disappointments that have already darkened his path, and arrives at a reluctant conviction that it is weak and unreasonable to imagine that the course of life can alter. As in the natural world the frequent interchange of sunshine and of shadow forbids us to anticipate the long duration of pleasant weather, so his past experience of human life leads him to regard all prospects of true and lasting happiness as idle dreams. He has reached too many of those once distant scenes, so gorgeously clad in colors of the air, to trust again to the soft illusions which fade at our approach. He has learnt that the many-tinted bow of heaven is nothing but the junction of light and vapour, and that the scenes that charm us afar off

To those who journey near

Barren, brown, and rough appear!

In this mistrustful mood of mind a thousand melancholy images rise up before him. Instead of the bright countenances of the living he sees the shrouded faces of the dead. The forms that cheered his childhood and smiled upon his later dreams are enveloped in the shadows of the grave. the hearth of his infancy is cold! which he once toiled with eager pleasure beneath the summer sun, is now a dreary wilderness. Or if the halls and lands of his fathers are not lonely and neglected, they are perhaps in the possession of the stranger, and his own birth-place is like a scene

His early home is empty— The sweet flower-garden, in

in a foreign land. He recalls the beautiful Arabic exclamation"I came to the place of my youth and cried, my friends, where are they? and Echo answered, where are they?" Even Nature herself seems changed. The once familiar hills and valleys have a strange look, like the face of an altered friend. He has heard, but too often, of such miserable mutations and disappointments, and he trembles as he reflects that his own fancy may prove prophetic. Besides all these gloomy fears and meditations, there are other drawbacks to that felicity which the home-seeking exile might enjoy if he were more sanguine and less reflective. He has perhaps formed many friendships with his fellow-countrymen in India, and it is impossible to break social ties, however slight, without some degree of sadness and regret. In the case of longtried and faithful friendships the parting hour-especially when the separation is probably an eternal one-is a dreadful trial. In the latter case it is like the farewell we take of the dying. Our last affectionate look at a familiar face is accompanied with a feeling that it is impossible to describe. The lowest depths of the human heart are stirred, and that convulsive movement with which we tear ourselves away for ever from the dear associates of many years seems to wrench some palpable and necessary support, and leave us bare and lacerated. Even the very spots that we have long wished to quit are hallowed when the time of parting is arrived. Like old acquaintances who had once but little of our love, or perhaps even something of our hatred, they present at such a moment a softer aspect, and we almost wonder that we should ever have regarded them with coldness or dislike. They have become a portion of our associations, and these, of whatever nature they may be, can hardly pass through the mists of memory without receiving that tender and dream-like hue which makes the past so precious. The coldest and coarsest mind is touched and elevated on such occasions. The finest points of our common nature are then developed; and never is the human

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