University of Virginia Library

SONNET I. NEW YEAR'S DAY.

Not with solemnities of festal mirth,—
The well-spread board, the wine-cup sparkling clear,
The laugh of neighbours o'er their Christmas cheer,
The gibe and gambol round the blazing hearth,—
Not with such rites we celebrate thy birth,
And bid thee blithe God-speed! O infant year:
Nor yet, in thoughtful mood, with brow severe,
Mourning thine elder sisters lost on earth;
But with leave-takings, and the bustling care
Of packing and of parting:—sad employ!
Yet not unmingled with a sober joy;
For we, who part, to separate homes repair,
So greeting well thy birth; since none may share
Life's pleasures undebased by pain's alloy.

SONNET II.

Once more the tardy progress of the spring
Brings round, beloved, our betrothal day,
Rich heretofore in all the sweets which May
Did from her teeming lap, prolific, fling;
But now the lingering Zephyr's crippled wing
Thro' boughs all bare and blossomless doth stray,
And scarce have winter's hoar-frosts pass'd away,
Or vernal birds begun as yet to sing.
But let the laggard and distemper'd year
Frown as it lists;—we two have sunshine still,
Warming with love sweet wedlock's atmosphere;
And many a bubbling fount and sparkling rill
Of joy and peace makes music sweet and clear
For us, scarce yet descending life's steep hill.

SONNET III.

Cousin, the phantom voice of other years
Spake to me, as I sat by thee once more,
And saw thee what thou wast in days of yore,
Unfaded yet by life's thick-gushing tears—
While thy loved voice made music in my ears,
Such as it did ere boyhood's dream was o'er,
Or manhood yet had found its present store
Of household joys and sorrows, hopes and fears.
Now in two worlds we dwell, by different cares
And sympathies begirt;—yet each, I trust,
Employ'd in tasks through which high Heaven prepares
For its own bliss the faithful and the just.
There may our spirits meet, as now our prayers,
When our dust, cousin, hath return'd to dust.

SONNET IV. WRITTEN IN THE HIGHLANDS.

Through islet-sprinkled lakes, embosom'd deep
In mountains crown'd with yet unmelted snow,
While o'er their heathery sides bright wild-flowers grow,—
Through rocky glens, in which, from steep to steep,
With rush and roar, the mountain torrents leap,—
O'er Inverara's heights,—through wild Glencroe—
(Delight and wonder kindling as we go)
From Arran's distant isle our course we keep.
But ask me not to paint what here we see,
With graphic pen, though all be passing dear
To memory;—for this outward world, to me,
Hath never been of tuneful thought the sphere;
My realm of song is human hope and fear,
Joy, grief, domestic peace and fireside glee.

SONNET V. LOCH RANZA.

From Brodick's matchless bay, along the shore
Of Arran northward, past the Sannox glen,
Her freight of sketching dames and wondering men
Our crowded steamboat to Loch Ranza bore
Which when we enter'd—all my hopes were o'er;
Nought found I there to task poetic pen:
But one there was, who with an artist's ken
Gazed at the scene, and straight began to pour
Artistic raptures about light and shade—
And how effectively these thints would lie,
And how much of those outlines might be made;
Yet he, with slender notice, had pass'd by
Glen-Sannox gorge.—How unlike mine his trade!
How far the painter's from the poet's eye!

SONNET VI. TO MY INFANT DAUGHTER.

My daughter!—in that name appear fulfill'd
The cherish'd dreams of many wedded years;
Child of as many wishes, hopes and fears,
As e'er through poet's restless bosom thrill'd,
How doth thy rising star serenely gild,
For me, the horizon of this vale of tears!
Which, in its tender light, almost appears
A place where Hope her final home might build.
But with a deeper joy I greet thy birth,
For that hereafter, as I fondly trust,
Thou shalt make glad thy mother's home and hearth,
When she shall mourn (as soon or late she must)
Her lack-land sons dispers'd throughout the earth,—
Her husband, and his follies, in the dust.

SONNET VII. TO MY YOUNGEST CHILD.

I would not have it said that thou alone,
My latest-born, hast been unsung by me,
Of six whom I have dandled on my knee,
Some among whom have, many a year, outgrown
Parental dandling:—therefore, for thine own,
Take now this sonnet,—though perchance to thee,
But little versed in lore of A, B, C,
'Twill seem a mystery better left unknown.
Right glad am I that thou art thus devoid
Of erudition;—that thy tender age
Hath been in healthier toil, till now, employ'd
Than poring o'er some spelling-book's dull page;—
That thou, a poet's daughter, hast enjoy'd
Life's early dawn unpent in schoolroom cage.

SONNET VIII.

With fond parental pride did I devote
This pair of sister Sonnets to the press;—
Short-sighted dreamer!—little did I guess
That, at the moment when the words I wrote,
Did Azrael's dusky wing already float
O'er both those gentle heads!—That sore distress—
Those long, long weeks of death's own bitterness
Are past—the Arm, thrice lifted, never smote.
For this deep mercy be the Chastener blest!
And ye, my children, from the grave's embrace
Deliver'd—our lost treasure repossest—
May ye, henceforth, by yet diviner grace
Made doubly His, so run your earthly race
That ye in Heaven with holiest saints may rest!

SONNET IX.

Six weeks of anxious watching and suspense,
With ceaseless ebbs and flows of hope and dread,
A tinge of silver o'er thy locks hath shed,
Dimming, in part, their dark magnificence,
Which else perchance had, many a summer hence,
As in time past, still graced thy matron head;
Grey hast thou grown beside our children's bed,
Raised, through thy care, from stroke of pestilence:
Therefore, O best-belov'd, more deeply now
Those streaks of summer snow do I hold dear
Than the pure jet which shaded thy young brow
When, at the altar's rail, with hearts sincere
We plighted, each to each, our nuptial vow;
—Mother and wife on Earth without a peer!

SONNET X. TO THE AUTHORESS OF “I WATCH'D THE HEAVENS.”

Within two miles of glorious dale and hill,
Lady, we two from infancy were bred;
And bravely (doubt not) were our spirits fed
On forms and hues which there with beauty fill
Meadow and valley, rock, and wood, and rill;
Each, by a guidance which we knew not, led
Through discipline, which train'd both heart and head
The Bard's mysterious mission to fulfil.
Nor grudge I, but rejoice, that Heaven to thee
Allots the loftier task, the nobler powers,
Teaching thy wing to soar, thine eye to see
Beyond the bounds of this gross world of ours;
While I, confined to Earth's green banks and bowers,
Pipe my wild notes of human grief and glee.

STANZAS.

TO THE SAME.

LAMENT FOR THE DOON.