When pensive, it seem'd as if that very grace, New beauty, like flow'rs that are sweetest when shaken. Yet playful as Peris just loos'd from their cages, "I'D MOURN THE HOPES." I'D mourn the hopes that leave me, But while I've thee before me, With heart so warm and eyes so bright, No clouds can linger o'er me, That smile turns them all to light! 'Tis not in fate to harm me, While fate leaves thy love to me; 'Tis not in joy to charm me, Unless joy be shared with thee. One minute's dream about thee Were worth a long, an endless year Of waking bliss without thee, My own love, my only dear! And though the hope be gone, love, That long sparkled o'er our way, More safely without its ray. Far better lights shall win me And pure smiles from thee at home. Thus, when the lamp that lighted He feels awhile benighted, And looks round in fear and doubt. But soon, the prospect clearing, By cloudless star-light on he treads, As that light which Heaven sheds. "HAS SORROW THY YOUNG DAYS SHADED?” HAS Sorrow thy young days shaded, As clouds o'er the morning fleet? That even in sorrow were sweet? Does time with his cold wing wither Has love to that soul so tender, Allured by the gleam that shone, Has hope, like the bird in the story The gem did she still display, If thus the sweet hours have fleeted If thus the unkind world wither Each feeling that once was dear; Come, child of misfortune! come hither, I'll weep with thee, tear for tear. WOLFE. THE BURIAL OF SIR JOHN MOORE, Nor a drum was heard, not a funeral note, We buried him darkly, at dead of night, No useless coffin enclosed his breast, Nor in sheet nor in shroud we wound him; Few and short were the prayers we said, And we spoke not a word of sorrow; And we steadfastly gazed on the face of the dead, And we bitterly thought of the morrow. We thought, as we hollow'd his narrow bed, And smooth'd down his lonely pillow, That the foe and the stranger would tread o'er his head, And we far away on the billow! |