TO A LARK. THE hymeneal chant While youthful hearts do pant, Rising like incense rich around a bridegroom king, Its strains cannot compare With thine for notes so rare, That from thy joyous heart exultingly do spring. Thy music is thine own; A soul-enchanting tone, By ecstacy inbreathed, when thou wast born, to be A soaring song of Love Embodied, that above Mocks our most vivid joys with its aërial glee. ON THE FALL OF THE LEAVES. THEY lie commingling with the earth that late Others will be as beautiful, and sear. My friends around me fall, by death's rude blast Blown rapidly away; and some in prime Of verdant youth. And are they lost amid The common dust? No. This most lovely eve, That they shall be again as flourishing As e'er on earth, in heaven, and happier far. I hail the omen, sorrow for the loss Of dearest friends, but joy that they are blest. *"A sylvan scene, and as the ranks ascend Shade above shade, a woody theatre Of stateliest view."-MILTON. My good old mansion, shall resound no more And head-ache, and the “numerous ills that flesh Smiling with wonted cheerfulness on me : I know that manly form, but, Oh! how pale Those cheeks, that once with health's rich colour glow'd! Mild as the moon in the deep blue of heaven Looks gentleness above the quiet grove, And thy society,-alas, how brief! And hope for thy companionship again In worlds which here conjecture vainly strives October, 1830. THE WOOD NYMPH. SAW you the Wood-nymph pass this way, Nature alone can give the grace That tempers vivacity in her fair form; Like Dian she moves, but her lovely face She bounded along like the gentle fawn Through the glade, then rapidly glided away: Thus vanish the fairies at break of dawn, When their revels have ended beneath the moon's ray. THE CIGAR. "EX FUMO DARE LUCEM." CIGAR, thou comfort of my life, It soothes me when my heart's at strife Blue devils rush before my sight; Turns devils into angels bright: A self-complacency that creeps Canst give; till every passion sleeps, Ꮓ |