A moment to my side he clung, A moment still'd his joyous tongue, Then, quite forgetting the command, In life's exulting burst Of early glee, let go my hand, And now I did not check him more, SHE spread no funeral pall above But the same azure vault of love As hung o'er all around. And white clouds o'er that spot would pass As freely as elsewhere; The sunshine on no other grass A richer hue might wear. And form'd from out that very mould Look'd up into the sky. The rook was wheeling overhead, The small bird did its glad notes shed, And God, I said, would never give Nor bid in Childhood's heart to live If our one wisdom were to mourn, To nurse, as wisest, thoughts forlorn. Oh no! the glory earth puts on, A triumph won o'er Sin and Death- And, like a happy infant, Faith TO AN INFANT SLEEPING. OH, drinking deep of slumber's holy wine, For in thy dim unconscious infancy No games as yet, no play-fellows are thine, To stir in waking hours such thoughts of glee, As recollected in thine innocent dream Might shed across thy face a happy gleam. It may be, though small notice thou canst take, Is ever round thee, sleeping or awake: move: Thou wakest, and kind faces from above Or it may be, thoughts deeper than we deem Visit an infant's slumbers-God is near, Angels are talking to them in their dream, Angelic voices whispering sweet and clear; And round them lies that region's holy gleam, But newly left, and light which is not here = And thus has come that smile upon thy face, At tidings brought thee from thy native place But whatsoe'er the causes which beguiled But not less fair when ripple it has none: ALFORD. HYMN TO THE SEA. WHO shall declare the secret of thy birth, And having marked with keen poetic sight Through the vast silence stirred, Roll back the folded darkness of the primal night? Corruption-like, thou teemedst in the graves Of mouldering systems, with dark weltering waves Troubling the peace of the first mother's womb; Whose ancient awful form, With inly-tossing storm, Unquiet heavings kept-a birth-place and a tomb. Till the life-giving Spirit moved above The face of the waters, with creative love Warming the hidden seeds of infant light: What time the mighty Word Through thine abyss was heard, And swam from out thy deeps the young day heavenly bright. Thou and the earth, twin-sisters, as they say, The summer hours away, Curling thy loving ripples up her quiet shore. She is married, a matron long ago, With nations at her side; her milk doth flow Each year; but thee no husband dares to Thy sole and virgin throne Thy mood is ever changing-thy resolve the Sunlight and moonlight minister to thee;- tame; same. |