Bride and consort of Heaven, that looks down upon thee enamour'd! Say, mysterious Earth! O say, great mother and goddess, Was it not well with thee then, when first thy lap was ungirdled, Thy lap to the genial Heaven, the day that he woo'd thee and won thee! Fair was thy blush, the fairest and first of the blushes of morning! Deep was the shudder, O Earth! the throe of thy self-retention: Inly thou strovest to flee, and didst seek thyself at thy centre! Mightier far was the joy of thy sudden resilience; and forthwith Myriad myriads of lives teem'd forth from the mighty embracement. Thousand-fold tribes of dwellers, impell'd by thousand-fold instincts, Fill'd, as a dream, the wide waters; the rivers sang on their channels; Laugh'd on their shores the hoarse seas; the yearning ocean swell'd upward; Young life low'd through the meadows, the woods, and the echoing mountains, Wander'd bleating in valleys, and warbled on blossoming branches. WRITTEN DURING A TEMPORARY BLINDNESS, IN THE YEAR 1799. O, WHAT a life is the eye! what a strange and inscrutable essence! Him, that is utterly blind, nor glimpses the fire that warms him ; Him that never beheld the swelling breast of his mother; Him that smiled in his gladness as a babe that smiles in its slumber; Even for him it exists! It moves and stirs in its prison ! Lives with a separate life: and-"Is it a spirit? he murmurs: "Sure, it has thoughts of its own, and to see is only a language!" MAHOMET.. UTTER the song, O my soul ! the flight and re turn of Mohammed, Prophet and priest, who scatter'd abroad both evil and blessing, Huge wasteful empires founded and hallow'd slow persecution, Soul-withering, but crush'd the blasphemous rites of the Pagan And idolatrous Christians.-For veiling the Gospel of Jesus, They, the best corrupting, had made it worse than the vilest. Wherefore Heaven decreed th' enthusiast warrior of Mecca, Choosing good from iniquity rather than evil from goodness. Loud the tumult in Mecca surrounding the fane of the idol ;— Naked and prostrate the priesthood were laid-the people with mad shouts Thundering now, and now with saddest ululation Flew, as over the channel of rock-stone the ruinous river Shatters its waters abreast, and in mazy uproar bewilder'd, Rushes dividuous all-all rushing impetuous onward. CATULLIAN HENDECASYLLABLES.* HEAR, my beloved, an old Milesian story!— * Freely translated from Mathisson's Milesisches Mährchen. Oft did a priestess, as lovely as a vision, Over the dusk wave, until the nightly sailor DUTY SURVIVING SELF-LOVE, THE ONLY SURE FRIEND OF DECLINING LIFE. A SOLILOQUY. UNCHANGED within to see all changed without Is a blank lot and hard to bear, no doubt. Yet why at others' wanings should'st thou fret ? Then only might'st thou feel a just regret, Hadst thou withheld thy love or hid thy light In selfish forethought of neglect and slight. O wiselier then, from feeble yearnings freed, While, and on whom, thou may'st-shine on! nor heed Whether the object by reflected light Return thy radiance or absorb it quite : And though thou notest from thy safe recess PHANTOM OR FACT? A DIALOGUE IN VERSE. AUTHOR. A LOVELY form there sate beside my bed, And such a feeding calm its presence shed, A tender love so pure from earthly leaven, But ah! the change-It had not stirr'd, and yet- FRIEND. This riddling tale, to what does it belong? AUTHOR. Call it a moment's work (and such it seems) And 'tis a record from the dream of life. PHANTOM, AL LL look and likeness caught from earth, Had pass'd away. There was no trace *i. e. scarcely, hardly.-ED. |