University of Virginia Library

SONNETS.

THE VOICE OF NATURE.

Feels thy high heart the pulse of vanity?—
Behold the quiet grandeur of the hills,
Observe how small a space thy greatness fills,
A grain on earth!—a raindrop on the sea!—
Art thou admired—acknowledged beautiful?
O! view the evening sky when all array'd
In gorgeous light; mark with what speed 'tis dull!
Then tell thy soul how swift the lovely fade!
Are thy blue eyes like stars?—the stars must fall—
Thy voice a warbling stream?—the stream may dry—
Thy lips like roses?—roses too will die—
Thy brow yet young?—age cannot youth recal—
The beautiful of earth are only given
As dreams of the reality of heaven!

LIFE.

I saw a light upon the landscape playing,
Sunning the broken turret, tree and mount;
Anon, the waters of the distant fount
In rainbow hues of loveliness arraying:
I marked how dark and sudden fell the gloom,
How deathlike, as the wandering beam pass'd on,
To make some happier spot its transient throne;
Again to leave it rayless as the tomb!—
Emblem of life, methought, is this brief light;
We feel one moment of a warm glad ray,
One blessed glow of youth, then far away
It speeds, and we are left to death and night!—
But there's a world to light and love assign'd,
A fadeless day for the undying mind!

THE OLD MARINER.

The snow of many hoary winters play'd
Around his aged temples—and his form
Was bowed beneath much suffering, strife, and storm:
All save his generous heart Time had decay'd:
The ocean was his passion, gale or calm;
He reverenced each wave on its vast breast,
Its ancient sounds a world of thoughts exprest,
Falling upon his spirit's love like balm;
Morning or noon or night still he was there,
Pacing with lingering steps the breezy shore,
Rejoicing in the ships the proud sea bore,
Rejoicing in the sails and streamers fair:
His last request was that his lowly grave
Might be some spot loved by the sounding wave!

AN EMBLEM.

A solitary cloud is on the sky,
Heavy and black, the warm effulgent sun
Irradiates it not, slow floats it by,
Dark as when first its sullen course began
From the grey west—the only sombre thing,
Where all is beautiful—the clear sunlight
Bathes the blue quiet heaven, the lark's wing
Is crown'd with glory on its sounding flight.
True emblem of the lost and fallen mind!
Drear, though around it love's sweet beams are cast,
Austere and doubtful, gloomy to the last,
Scorning the blessed light to man assign'd;
Sad is its path—in danger it is trod—
Save and forgive that erring mind, O God!

WRITTEN ON MY MOTHER'S GRAVE.

O spirit of my Mother! if that thou
May'st hear me from this dark and desert place,
If, through the dim immensity of space,
Thine eyes might gaze upon my sadden'd brow;
If in thy sainted sphere thou lov'st me now;
Pour down the freshness of thy spirit's light
Upon my lonely heart—bid Virtue's might
The quiet tenor of my days endow:—
That when my summer breath of time is o'er,
When lost upon Death's shore is Life's last wave;
I may from the damp silence of the grave
Spring to thy blessed arms to part no more;
And, ah! until that home of bliss be won,
Look down, my Mother! bless—oh, bless thy Son!

THE BRIDE.

She kissed her aged sire—her hopes were dull—
And bursting sighs told what she could not speak;
O! as her bright lips touch'd his faded cheek,
She look'd of all on earth most beautiful:
She kissed her sorrowing mother—on that breast
Which oft had pillow'd her in sweet repose
She sank, 'mid tears and blushes, like a rose
On which the heavy morning dews have prest;
Her sister too—and could she e'er forget
The charm of many a past delightful scene?
They part to be no more as they have been;
They part to meet no more as they have met:
Alas, who may the depth of sorrow tell
Which lies in that bereaving word—Farewell!

EVENING.

The moon upon the cloudless heaven moved slow,
The pale flowers gather'd up their leaves to sleep;
In silence lay the lonely vale below
In silence spread the venerable deep:
The ancient mountains dream'd in loneliness,
A languor seem'd even in the moonlight ray,
The fresh clear stream, that gurgled through the day,
Now passed in calm and holy quietness:
The last light from the cottage casement fled,
The late bird's wings lay folded in sweet rest,
The Spirit of the Evening all things blest,
Bird, flower, vale, mountain, and the cotter's bed!—
Gradually yielding to the night's mild sway,
As music on the seas, faint, fading, far away!

THE STRANGER.

There is regality on his stern brow,
A mental grandeur in his gloomy eye,
Denoting thoughts—feelings that may not die—
Yet blight the melancholy heart to know:
O! there must live some fearful cause of woe
To stoop that lofty mind—that spirit high,
And give to solitude and misery
One formed to grace the all Love may bestow.
I have marked tears—the bitterest which flow—
Heard, too, the long repress'd corroding sigh
From him, who when the madden'd tempests blow
Will their fierce might—their deadly rage—defy!
But who the soul in its dark depths may show?—
Man to himself is still a mystery!

TIME.

On speeds the dark sepulchral flow of Time,
Its depths unsearchable as the vast sea,
Its goal—the harbour of eternity,
The stormless beauty of a heavenly clime:
What know the neighbouring shores of its career?
I hear a voice, as of the trumpet's breath,
Replying “All we know of Time—is death!—
But we have trust in God and do not fear.”
What feel the buried dead of its high power?—
A voice comes answering from the charnel-land—
“Man! seek not thou the doom Time may command,
That will thy God show in his own good hour!”
Then Time, unawed I mark thy fatal roll,
Thou hast no power o'er the immortal soul!

THE STREAM.

There is a stream—a dark and lonely stream—
Springs where the cypress branches weep around;
Few footsteps visit that secluded ground—
The aged woodmen it unholy deem:
Wild tales are told of fearful objects seen
Wandering its gloomy banks—of thrilling cries
Heard in that hour when purple twilight dies
Along the south—mild, beauteous and serene—
But morn or noon have never found the power
To change the dismal hue those waters bear:
'Tis night—unaltering and for ever there,
In vain the sun may shine—the storm may lower!—
Are there not men, much like this history,
That live in darkness, and in darkness die?

A CHANGE.

In a romantic path—love joys to grace—
Border'd with flowers of rarest light and bloom,
Filling the summer zephyrs with perfume,
A crystal brook begins its singing race,
In all the world there is not such a place
For graceful beauty—there the playful fawn,
And the red deer are seen at early dawn
Drinking its waters—fearless of the chace:
The queenly broom bestows a golden shower
Of richest fragrance, it is favour'd by
The lark's and blackbird's sweetest melody!
A home just formed for youth's impassion'd hour:
Beauty enwreaths the spot where e'er you move;—
'Tis sacred to the heart—to hope—to love!

THE MOURNER

Break! break my lonely heart—thou wert not made
To stem the treach'rous billows of Life's sea;
Earth's sweets are rife—but they bloom not for thee—
Thy cherish'd hopes in one brief moment fade;
Canker and blight thy tender buds invade,
While stranger flowers 'mid summer light spring free.
O! thus for ever comes some dire decree,
To cast thy bright'ning heaven into shade;
Whate'er thou prizedst, its sure decay was fleet:
Alas, thou hast but served whereon to make
A burning record of man's black deceit!
Of friendship false!—of love that could forsake!—
When will thy cup of misery be replete?
My heart—my heavy heart—forget,—or break!

ETERNITY

Eternity!—the name—the very sound
Lies like a spell of glory on my soul;
Rapt in the visions, I may not control,
Of light too vivid! darkness too profound!
Eternity begun—the soul reborn—
Dead, yet not lost; awakening....to what?—
A sphere how beauteous—an unfading morn—
Heaven—love, joy, gain'd! earth—care and woe, forgot!
Spirits untired—a never drooping thought—
Whence flows the spring of exquisite delight;
A home! earth's brightest seats are dim as night
To the blest mansions in God's splendour wrought;
And lives for man this home? this deathless crown?—
Bow to the ground my soul in worship down!

THE GRAVE.

Could'st thou unsolve the mystery of thy reign,
Thou gloomy grave! prompter of many fears!
The hidden histories of forgotten years;
Had'st thou a voice to publish and explain;
Thine were a theme to crush—destroy the brain—
To fix the eyes till they dissolved to tears—
O God! the boundless, globe one tomb appears,
The bones of Death one vast terrific chain:
A King lies mouldering there! where rests his crown?
A Woman! who would now her dark lips kiss?
A Poet—and may genius fade to this,
Thrown from his eagle flight untimely down?
O! fearful is thy strength insatiate Grave,
But there's a power far mightier—to save!

THE VILLAGE CHURCH.

It stands within a solitary vale
Shadow'd by ancient trees, which year on year
Still live—as relics Time and Death revere—
Unhurt by lightning's scathe—by winter-gale;—
Around each low calm grave the wild flower pale,
Like Pity, bends with many a balmy tear
There, too, pride's 'scutcheon'd monuments appear,
With high ancestral name and lofty tale!
Dull is the mind—oh, more than cold the breast
That lonely Village Church may not incline
To deep and holy musings—from its rest
A warning spirit speaks with voice divine:—
Pass thou few days—few months perhaps at best—
A shroud—a grave—an epitaph is thine!

THE TREE.

Is it not beautiful—when Spring calls forth
Its countless shining leaves—and Winter's hands
Have loosed their withering hold upon the lands,
To wave their stormy banners in the north:—
Is it not beautiful—when Summer breathes
'Mid its red blossoms, like the richest wine,
And the clear sky sends down its warm sunshine,
In one broad radiance o'er its graceful wreaths—
Is it not beautiful—when gentle birds
Pass their melodious lives among its boughs;
Winning each other with soft music-vows,
Sweet as in starlight hours sound lovers' words?
Too soon it dies—while unkind storms assail,
A type of beauty—fading, fair and frail!

MORNING.

It is the Morn—but low and dim her ray—
Broad envious shades her beauteous form conceal,
The silent birds her banished brightness feel,
Droop the green leaves, the young buds pass away:
Thus man, when his enjoyments slow decay,
When disappointments like dark shadows steal,
When youth and hope no more their charms reveal,
Withers like leaf and flower, to grief a prey.
Morn's clouds are past! out bursts the glorious day!—
A thousand merry ringing voices peal—
Spring thousand summer blossoms, bright and gay,
Beauty on earth seems to have set her seal!
O! thus may Virtue unto man display
God's promised bliss, and his deep sorrows heal!

TO THE SUN.

Thou light of life! Thou glory of all light!
Spirit and sign of the eternal one!
Thou splendid monument—unmatch'd—alone—
Of HIS august, immeasureable might!
Time, change, and death speed on their ravaging flight;
Continents have perished—Empires been o'erthrown—
Even the giant Ocean change hath known—
Yet still Thou reign'st—unalter'd to the sight!
Nature looks up to thee as with a heart
Feeling instinctively thy blessed power;
Birds chant sweet vespers to thee—and the flower
Lives in thy life—dies when thy smiles depart—
While man—blest man—forgets the bonds of earth
His soul assured of its immortal birth!