Tracing the lines of life; assumed through years,
Each feature now the steady falsehood wears;
With hard and savage eye she views the food,
And grudging pinches their intruding brood.
Last in the group, the worn-out grandsire sits
Neglected, lost, and living but by fits;
Useless, despised, his worthless labours done,
And half-protected by the vicious son,
Who half-supports him, he with heavy glance
Views the young ruffians who around him dance,
And, by the sadness in his face, appears
To trace the progress of their future years;
Through what strange course of misery, vice, deceit,
Must wildly wander each unpractised cheat;
What shame and grief, what punishment and pain,
Sport of fierce passions, must each child sustain,
Ere they like him approach their latter end,
Without a hope, a comfort, or a friend!

[Gradual Approaches of Age.]

[From 'Tales of the Hall."]

Six years had passed, and forty ere the six,
When time began to play his usual tricks;
The locks once comely in a virgin's sight,

Locks of pure brown, displayed the encroaching white;
The blood, once fervid, now to cool began,

And Time's strong pressure to subdue the man.

I rode or walked as I was wont before,

But now the bounding spirit was no more;
A moderate pace would now my body heat;
A walk of moderate length distress my feet.
I showed my stranger guest those hills sublime,
But said, 'The view is poor; we need not climb.'
At a friend's mansion I began to dread
The cold neat parlour and the gay glazed bed:
At home I felt a more decided taste,
And must have all things in my order placed.
I ceased to hunt; my horses pleased me less-
My dinner more; I learned to play at chess.
I took my dog and gun, but saw the brute
Was disappointed that I did not shoot.
My morning walks I now could bear to lose,

And blessed the shower that gave me not to choose:
In fact, I felt a languor stealing on;

The active arm, the agile hand, were gone;
Small daily actions into habits grew,

And new dislike to forms and fashions new.

I loved my trees in order to dispose ;

I numbered peaches, looked how stocks arose;
Told the same story oft-in short, began to prose.

[Song of the Crazed Maiden.]
[From the same.]

Let me not have this gloomy view
About my room, about my bed;
But morning roses, wet with dew,

To cool my burning brow instead;
As flowers that once in Eden grew,
Let them their fragrant spirits shed,
And every day their sweets renew,

Till I, a fading flower, am dead.

O let the herbs I loved to rear
Give to my sense their perfumed breath!
Let them be placed about my bier,
And grace the gloomy house of death.
I'll have my grave beneath a hill,

Where only Lucy's self shall know,
Where runs the pure pellucid rill
Upon its gravelly bed below:
There violets on the borders blow,

And insects their soft light display,
Till, as the morning sunbeams glow,
The cold phosphoric fires decay.

That is the grave to Lucy shown;
The soil a pure and silver sand;
The green cold moss above it grown,
Unplucked of all but maiden hand.
In virgin earth, till then unturned,

There let my maiden form be laid;
Nor let my changed clay be spurned,
Nor for new guest that bed be made.
There will the lark, the lamb, in sport,
In air, on earth, securely play:
And Lucy to my grave resort,

As innocent, but not so gay.
I will not have the churchyard ground
With bones all black and ugly grown,
To press my shivering body round,

Or on my wasted limbs be thrown.
With ribs and skulls I will not sleep,

In clammy beds of cold blue clay, Through which the ringed earth-worms creep, And on the shrouded bosom prey. I will not have the bell proclaim When those sad marriage rites begin, And boys, without regard or shame, Press the vile mouldering masses in.

Say not, it is beneath my care

I cannot these cold truths allow;
These thoughts may not afflict me there,
But oh! they vex and tease me now!
Raise not a turf, nor set a stone,

That man a maiden's grave may trace,
But thou, my Lucy, come alone,
And let affection find the place!

[Sketches of Autumn.]

[From the same.]

It was a fair and mild autumnal sky,
And earth's ripe treasures met the admiring eye,
As a rich beauty when her bloom is lost,
Appears with more magnificence and cost:
The wet and heavy grass, where feet had strayed,
Not yet erect, the wanderer's way betrayed;
Showers of the night had swelled the deepening rill,
The morning breeze had urged the quickening mill;
Assembled rooks had winged their seaward flight,
By the same passage to return at night,
While proudly o'er them hung the steady kite,
Then turned them back, and left the noisy throng,
Nor deigned to know them as he sailed along.
Long yellow leaves, from osiers, strewed around,
Choked the dull stream, and hushed its feeble sound,
While the dead foliage dropt from loftier trees,
Our squire beheld not with his wonted ease;
But to his own reflections made reply,
And said aloud, 'Yes; doubtless we must die.'
'We must,' said Richard; and we would not live
To feel what dotage and decay will give;
But we yet taste whatever we behold;
The morn is lovely, though the air is cold:
There is delicious quiet in this scene,
At once so rich, so varied, so serene;
Sounds, too, delight us each discordant tone
Thus mingled please, that fail to please alone;
This hollow wind, this rustling of the brook,
The farm-yard noise, the woodman at yon oak-
See, the axe falls !-now listen to the stroke:
That gun itself, that murders all this peace,
Adds to the charm, because it soon must cease.

Cold grew the foggy morn, the day was brief,
Loose on the cherry hung the crimson leaf:
The dew dwelt ever on the herb; the woods
Roared with strong blasts, with mighty showers the
floods:

The peasants flocked to hear the minstrel play,
And games and carols closed the busy day.
Her wheel at rest, the matron thrills no more
With treasured tales and legendary lore.
All, all are fled; nor mirth nor music flows
To chase the dreams of innocent repose.
All, all are fled; yet still I linger here!
What secret charms this silent spot endear?

Mark yon old mansion frowning through the trees,
Whose hollow turret woos the whistling breeze.
That casement, arched with ivy's brownest shade,
First to these eyes the light of heaven conveyed.
The mouldering gateway strews the grass-grown court,
Once the calm scene of many a simple sport;
When nature pleased, for life itself was new,
And the heart promised what the fancy drew.

See, through the fractured pediment revealed, Where moss inlays the rudely sculptured shield, The martin's old hereditary nest.

Long may the ruin spare its hallowed guest!

*

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 noontide 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 cauldron 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 dropt 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.

Survey the globe, each ruder realm explore; From Reason's faintest ray to Newton soar.

What different spheres to human bliss assigned!
What slow gradations in the scale of mind!
Yet mark in each these mystic wonders wrought;
Oh mark the sleepless energies of thought!

The adventurous boy that asks his little share,
And hies from home with many a gossip's prayer,
Turns on the neighbouring hill, once more to see
The dear abode of peace and privacy;

And as he turns, the thatch among the trees,
The smoke's blue wreaths ascending with the breeze,
The village-common spotted white with sheep,
The churchyard yews round which his fathers sleep;
All rouse Reflection's sadly pleasing train,
And oft he looks and weeps, and looks again.

So, when the mild Tupia dared explore
Arts yet untaught, and worlds unknown before,
And, with the sons of Science, wooed the gale
That, rising, swelled their strange expanse of sail;
So, when he breathed his firm yet fond adieu,
Borne from his leafy hut, his carved canoe,
And all his soul best loved-such tears he shed,
While each soft scene of summer-beauty fled.
Long o'er the wave a wistful look he cast,
Long watched the streaming signal from the mast;
Till twilight's dewy tints deceived his eye,
And fairy forests fringed the evening sky.

So Scotia's queen, as slowly dawned the day,
Rose on her couch, and gazed her soul away.
Her eyes had blessed the beacon's glimmering height,
That faintly tipped the feathery surge with light;
But now the morn with orient hues portrayed
Each castled cliff and brown monastic shade:
All touched the talisman's resistless spring,
And lo, what busy tribes were instant on the wing!
Thus kindred objects kindred thoughts inspire,
As summer-clouds flash forth electric fire.
And hence this spot gives back the joys of youth,
Warm as the life, and with the mirror's truth.
Hence home-felt pleasure prompts the patriot's
sigh;

This makes him wish to live, and dare to die.
For this young Foscari, whose hapless fate
Venice should blush to hear the Muse relate,
When exile wore his blooming years away,
To sorrow's long soliloquies a prey,
When reason, justice, vainly urged his cause,
For this he roused her sanguinary laws;
Glad to return, though Hope could grant no more,
And chains and torture hailed him to the shore.

And hence the charm historic scenes impart;
Hence Tiber awes, and Avon melts the heart.
Aerial forms in Tempe's classic vale
Glance through the gloom and whisper in the gale;
In wild Vaucluse with love and Laura dwell,
And watch and weep in Eloisa's cell.

'Twas ever thus. Young Ammon, when he sought
Where Ilium stood, and where Pelides fought,
Sat at the helm himself. No meaner hand
Steered through the waves, and when he struck the
land,

Such in his soul the ardour to explore,
Pelides-like, he leaped the first ashore.
As now at Virgil's tomb

'Twas ever thus.

We bless the shade, and bid the verdure bloom:
So Tully paused, amid the wrecks of Time,
On the rude stone to trace the truth sublime;
When at his feet in honoured dust disclosed,
The immortal sage of Syracuse reposed.
And as he long in sweet delusion hung
Where once a Plato taught, a Pindar sung;
Who now but meets him musing, when he roves
In Rome's great forum, who but hears him roll
His ruined Tusculan's romantic groves?
His moral thunders o'er the subject soul?

And hence that calm delight the portrait gives: We gaze on every feature till it lives!

Still the fond lover sees the absent maid;
And the lost friend still lingers in his shade!
Say why the pensive widow loves to weep,
When on her knee she rocks her babe to sleep:
Tremblingly still, she lifts his veil to trace

The father's features in his infant face.
The hoary grandsire smiles the hour away,
Won by the raptures of a game at play;
He bends to meet each artless burst of joy,
Forgets his age, and acts again the boy.

What though the iron school of war erase
Each milder virtue, and each softer grace;
What though the fiend's torpedo-touch arrest
Each gentler, finer impulse of the breast;
Still shall this active principle preside,
And wake the tear to Pity's self denied.

The intrepid Swiss, who guards a foreign shore, Condemned to climb his mountain-cliffs no more, If chance he hears the song so sweetly wild Which on those cliffs his infant hours beguiled, Melts at the long-lost scenes that round him rise, And sinks a martyr to repentant sighs.

Ask not if courts or camps dissolve the charm: Say why Vespasian loved his Sabine farm?

Why great Navarre, when France and freedom bled,
Sought the lone limits of a forest-shed?

When Dioclesian's self-corrected mind
The imperial fasces of a world resigned,
Say why we trace the labours of his spade
In calm Salona's philosophic shade?

Say, when contentious Charles renounced a throne,
To muse with monks unlettered and unknown,
What from his soul the parting tribute drew?
What claimed the sorrows of a last adieu?
The still retreats that soothed his tranquil breast
Ere grandeur dazzled, and its cares oppressed.

Undamped by time, the generous Instinct glows
Far as Angola's sands, as Zembla's snows;
Glows in the tiger's den, the serpent's nest,
On every form of varied life impressed.

The social tribes its choicest influence hail :
And when the drum beats briskly in the gale,
The war-worn courser charges at the sound,
And with young vigour wheels the pasture round.
Oft has the aged tenant of the vale
Leaned on his staff to lengthen out the tale;
Oft have his lips the grateful tribute breathed,
From sire to son with pious zeal bequeathed.
When o'er the blasted heath the day declined,
And on the scathed oak warred the winter-wind;
When not a distant taper's twinkling ray
Gleamed o'er the furze to light him on his way;
When not a sheep-bell soothed his listening ear,
And the big rain-drops told the tempest near;
Then did his horse the homeward track descry,
The track that shunned his sad inquiring eye;
And win each wavering purpose to relent,
With warmth so mild, so gently violent,
That his charmed hand the careless rein resigned,
And doubts and terrors vanished from his mind.
Recall the traveller, whose altered form
Has borne the buffet of the mountain-storm;
And who will first his fond impatience meet?
His faithful dog's already at his feet!
Yes, though the porter spurn him from the door,
Though all that knew him know his face no more,
His faithful dog shall tell his joy to each,
With that mute eloquence which passes speech.
And see,
the master but returns to die!

Yet who shall bid the watchful servant fly?
The blasts of heaven, the drenching dews of earth,
The wanton insults of unfeeling mirth,
These, when to guard Misfortune's sacred grave,
Will firm Fidelity exult to brave.

Led by what chart, transports the timid dove
The wreaths of conquest or the vows of love?

Say, through the clouds what compass points her

flight? Monarchs have gazed, and nations blessed the sight. Pile rocks on rocks, bid woods and mountains rise, Eclipse her native shades, her native skies: 'Tis vain! through ether's pathless wild she goes, And lights at last where all her cares repose.

Sweet bird! thy truth shall Harlem's walls attest, And unborn ages consecrate thy nest. When, with the silent energy of grief, With looks that asked, yet dared not hope relief, Want with her babes round generous Valour clung, To wring the slow surrender from his tongue, 'Twas thine to animate her closing eye; Alas! 'twas thine perchance the first to die, Crushed by her meagre hand when welcomed from the sky.

Hark! the bee winds her small but mellow horn, Blithe to salute the sunny smile of morn. O'er thymy downs she bends her busy course, And many a stream allures her to its source. 'Tis noon-'tis night. That eye so finely wrought, Beyond the search of sense, the soar of thought, Now vainly asks the scenes she left behind; Its orb so full, its vision so confined! Who guides the patient pilgrim to her cell? Who bids her soul with conscious triumph swell? With conscious truth retrace the mazy clue Of summer-scents, that charmed her as she flew { Hail, Memory, hail! thy universal reign Guards the least link of Being's glorious chain.

As the stern grandeur of a Gothic tower
Awes us less deeply in its morning-hour,
Than when the shades of Time serenely fall
On every broken arch and ivied wall;
The tender images we love to trace
Steal from each year a melancholy grace!
And as the sparks of social love expand,
As the heart opens in a foreign land;

And, with a brother's warmth, a brother's smile,
The stranger greets each native of his isle;
So scenes of life, when present and confest,
Stamp but their bolder features on the breast;
Yet not an image, when remotely viewed,
However trivial, and however rude,
But wins the heart, and wakes the social sigh,
With every claim of close affinity!

*

Hail, Memory, hail! in thy exhaustless mine From age to age unnumbered treasures shine! Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, And Place and Time are subject to thy sway! Thy pleasures most we feel when most alone; The only pleasures we can call our own. Lighter than air, Hope's summer-visions die, If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; If but a beam of sober Reason play, Lo, Fancy's fairy frost-work melts away! But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, Snatch the rich relics of a well-spent hour! These, when the trembling spirit wings her flight, Pour round her path a stream of living light; And gild those pure and perfect realms of rest, Where Virtue triumphs, and her sons are blest!

[From Human Life.']

The lark has sung his carol in the sky,
The bees have hummed their noontide 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 these 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 her 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 has 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 wonderous 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!

The day arrives, the moment wished and feared;
The child is born, by many a pang endeared,
And now the mother's ear has caught his cry;
Oh grant the cherub to her asking eye!
He comes-she clasps him. To her bosom pressed,
He drinks the balm of life, and drops to rest.

Her by her smile how soon the stranger knows!
How soon by his the glad discovery shows!
As to her lips she lifts the lovely boy,
What answering looks of sympathy and joy!
He walks, he speaks. In many a broken word
His wants, his wishes, and his griefs are heard.
And ever, ever to her lap he flies,

When rosy Sleep comes on with sweet surprise.
Locked in her arms, his arms across her flung
(That name most dear for ever on his tongue),
As with soft accents round her neck he clings,
And, cheek to cheek, her lulling song she sings,
How blest to feel the beatings of his heart,
Breathe his sweet breath, and kiss for kiss impart;
Watch o'er his slumbers like the brooding dove,
And, if she can, exhaust a mother's love!

But soon a nobler task demands her care.
Apart she joins his little hands in prayer,
Telling of Him who sees in secret there!
And now the volume on her knee has caught
His wandering eye-now many a written thought
Never to die, with many a lisping sweet,
His moving, murmuring lips endeavour to repeat.

[From The Voyage of Columbus.']

The sails were furled; with many a melting close, Solemn and slow the evening anthem rose, Rose to the Virgin. 'Twas the hour of day, When setting suns o'er summer seas display A path of glory, opening in the west To golden climes and islands of the blest; And human voices, on the silent air, Went o'er the waves in songs of gladness there!

Chosen of men! 'Twas thine, at noon of night, First from the prow to hail the glimmering light:

(Emblem of Truth divine, whose secret ray
Enters the soul and makes the darkness day!)
'Pedro! Rodrigo! there methought it shone!
There in the west! and now, alas! 'tis gone!-
'Twas all a dream! we gaze and gaze in vain!
But mark and speak not, there it comes again!
It moves!-what form unseen, what being there
With torch-like lustre fires the murky air?
His instincts, passions, say, how like our own?
Oh! when will day reveal a world unknown?'
Long on the deep the mists of morning lay,
Then rose, revealing as they rolled away
Half-circling hills, whose everlasting woods
Sweep with their sable skirts the shadowy floods:
And say, when all, to holy transport given,
Embraced and wept as at the gates of Heaven,
When one and all of us, repentant, ran,
And, on our faces, blessed the wondrous man;
Say, was I then deceived, or from the skies
Burst on my ear seraphic harmonies?
'Glory to God!' unnumbered voices sung,
"Glory to God!' the vales and mountains rung,
Voices that hailed creation's primal morn,
And to the shepherds sung a Saviour born.

Slowly, bareheaded, through the surf we bore
The sacred cross, and, kneeling, kissed the shore.
But what a scene was there! Nymphs of romance,
Youths graceful as the fawn, with eager glance,
Spring from the glades, and down the alleys peep,
Then headlong rush, bounding from steep to steep,
And clap their hands, exclaiming as they run,
'Come and behold the Children of the Sun!'
When hark, a signal shot! The voice, it came
Over the sea in darkness and in flame!
They saw, they heard; and up the highest hill,
As in a picture, all at once were still!
Creatures so fair, in garments strangely wrought,
From citadels, with Heaven's own thunder fraught,
Checked their light footsteps-statue-like they

stood

As worshipped forms, the Genii of the Wood!

At length the spell dissolves! The warrior's lance
Rings on the tortoise with wild dissonance!
And see, the regal plumes, the couch of state!
Still where it moves the wise in council wait!
See now borne forth the monstrous mask of gold,
And ebon chair of many a serpent-fold;
These now exchanged for gifts that thrice surpass
The wondrous ring, and lamp, and horse of brass.
What long-drawn tube transports the gazer home,
Kindling with stars at noon the ethereal dome!
"Tis here: and here circles of solid light
Charm with another self the cheated sight;
As man to man another self disclose,

That now with terror starts, with triumph glows!
Then Cora came, the youngest of her race,
And in her hands she hid her lovely face;
Yet oft by stealth a timid glance she cast,
And now with playful step the mirror passed,
Each bright reflection brighter than the last!
And oft behind it flew, and oft before;

The more she searched, pleased and perplexed the

more!

And looked and laughed, and blushed with quick surprise!

Her lips all mirth, all ecstacy her eyes!

But soon the telescope attracts her view;
And lo, her lover in his light canoe
Rocking, at noontide, on the silent sea,
Before her lies! It cannot, cannot be.
Late as he left the shore, she lingered there,
Till, less and less, he melted into air!
Sigh after sigh steals from her gentle frame,
And say that murmur-was it not his name?
She turns, and thinks, and, lost in wild amaze,
Gazes again, and could for ever gaze!