10

THE CONVICT SHIP.

Who-as he watches her silently gliding,—
Remembers that wave after wave is dividing
Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,
Hearts that are parted and broken for ever!
Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's grave!

"Tis thus with our life, while it passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song!
Gaily we glide, in the gaze of the world,

With streamers afloat, and with canvass unfurled ;
All gladness and glory to wandering eyes,

Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs !—
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,

As the smiles we put on-just to cover our tears;
And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know,
Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below;

While the vessel drives on to that desolate shore

Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er!

TO A GIRL, WEEPING.

MINE eyes-that may not see thee smile,

Are glad to see thee weep;

Thy spirit's calm, this weary while,

Has been too dark and deep!

Alas! for him who has but tears,
To mark his path of pain,

But oh! his long and lonely years,
Who may not weep again!

12

TO A GIRL, WEEPING.

Thou know'st, young mourner! thou hast been

Through good and ill, to me,

Amid a bleak and blighted scene,

A single leafy tree :

A star within a stormy sky;

An island on the main;

And I have prayed, in agony,
To see thee weep again!

Thou, ever, wert a thing of tears,
When but a playful child,

A very sport of hopes and fears,

And both too warm and wild!

Thy lightest thoughts and wishes wore

Too passionate a strain ;—

To such how often comes an hour,

They never weep again!

Thou wert of those whose very morn
Gives some dark hint of night,

And, in thine eye, too soon was born
A sad and softened light;

And on thy brow youth set the seal
Which years, upon thy brain,
Confirmed too well,-and they who feel
May scarcely weep again!

Yet, once again, within thine eye,

I see the waters start,

The fountains cannot all be dry

Within so young a heart!

Our love, which clouds have wrapt awhile,

Thirsts for the spirit's rain,

And I shall yet behold thee smile,

Since thou hast wept again!

THE TEMPLE OF JUPITER OLYMPIUS,

AT ATHENS.

AFTER A PICTURE BY WILLIAMS, IN HIS "VIEWS IN GREECE."

THOU art not silent!-oracles are thine
Which the wind utters, and the spirit hears,
Lingering, 'mid ruined fane and broken shrine,
O'er many a tale and trace of other years!
Bright as an ark, o'er all the flood of tears
That wraps thy cradle-land-thine earthly love,
Where hours of hope, 'mid centuries of fears,

Have gleamed, like lightnings through the gloom

above,

Stands, roofless to the sky, thy home, Olympian Jove!