A temple given Thy faith, that bigots dare not ban- Its roof star-pictured Nature's ceiling, The harmonious spheres Fair stars! are not your beings pure? Ye must be Heavens that make us sure And in your harmony sublime I read the doom of distant time; That man's regenerate soul from crime And reason on his mortal clime Immortal dawn. What's hallow'd ground? 'Tis what gives birth To sacred thoughts in souls of worth !— Peace! Independence! 'Truth! go forth Earth's compass'd round; And your high-priesthood shall make carth All hallow'd ground. CAROLINE. PART I. I'LL bid the hyacinth to blow, I'll teach my grotto green to be; And sing my true love, all below The holly bower and myrtle-tree. There all his wild-wood sweets to bring, The sweet south wind shall wander by, And with the music of his wing Delight my rustling canopy. Come to my close and clustering bower, Thou spirit of a milder clime, Fresh with the dews of fruit and flower, Of mountain-heath, and moory thyme. With all thy rural echoes come, Sweet comrade of the rosy day, Wafting the wild bee's gentle hum, Or cuckoo's plaintive roundelay. Where'er thy morning breath has play'd, Thou wandering wind of fairy-land. For sure from some enchanted isle, Where Heaven and Love their sabbath hold Where pure and happy spirits smile, Of beauty's fairest, brightest mould; From some green Eden of the deep, Where Pleasure's sigh alone is heaved, Where tears of rapture lovers weep, Endear'd, undoubting, undeceived; From some sweet paradise afar, Thy music wanders, distant, lostWhere Nature lights her leading star, And love is never cross'd. Oh gentle gale of Eden bowers, If back thy rosy feet should roam, To revel with the cloudless Hours In Nature's more propitious home, Name to thy loved Elysian groves, That o'er enchanted spirits twine, A fairer form than cherub loves, And let the name be Caroline. PART II. TO THE EVENING STAR. GEM of the crimson-colour'd Even, Companion of retiring day, Why at the closing gates of Heaven, Beloved star, dost thou delay ? So fair thy pensile beauty burns, So kind a star thou seem'st to be, Descends and burns to meet with thec. Thine is the breathing, blushing hour, O sacred to the fall of day, Queen of propitious stars, appear, And early rise, and long delay, When Caroline herself is here! Shine on her chosen green resort, Whose trees the sunward summit crown, And wanton flowers, that well may court An Angel's feet to tread them down. Shine on her sweetly-scented road, Thou star of evening's purple dome, That lead'st the nightingale abroad, And guidest the pilgrim to his home. Shine, where my charmer's sweeter breath Where, winnow'd by the gentle air, Thus, ever thus, at day's decline, FIELD FLOWERS. Not a pastoral song has a pleasanter tune Where I thought it delightful your beauties to find And your blossoms were part of her spell. Ev'n now what affection the violet awakes; Had scathed my existence's bloom; stage, With the visions of youth to revisit my age, DIRGE OF WALLACE. THEY lighted a taper at the dead of night, But her brow and her bosom were damp with Her eye was all sleepless and dim! When a death-watch beat in her lonely room, "Now sing you the death-song, and loudly pray Yet knew not his country that ominous hour, YE field flowers! the gardens eclipse you, 'tis That a trumpet of death on an English tower And the sword that seem'd fit for Archangel to wield, Was light in his terrible hand! On a rock of the ocean fair Ellen did seem; Glenara! Glenara! now read me my dream!" In dust, low the traitor has knelt to the ground, Yet bleeding and bound, though her Wallace And the desert reveal'd where his lady was wight For his long-loved country die, The bugle ne'er sung to a braver knight Than Wallace of Elderslie! But the day of his glory shall never depart, His head unentomb'd shall with glory be palm'd, From its blood-streaming altar his spirit shall start: Though the raven has fed on his mouldering heart, A nobler was never embalm'd! GLENARA. O HEARD ye yon pibroch sound sad in the gale, Where a band cometh slowly with weeping and wail? 'Tis the chief of Glenara laments for his dear; And her sire, and the people, are call'd to her bier. Glenara came first with the mourners and shroud; Her kinsmen they follow'd, but mourn'd not aloud: Their plaids all their bosoms were folded around: They march'd all in silence-they look'd on the ground. In silence they reach'd over mountain and moor, To a heath, where the oak-tree grew lonely and hoar: "Now here let us place the gray stone of her cairn : Why speak ye no word?"—said Glenara the found; From a rock of the ocean that beauty is borneNow joy to the house of fair Ellen of Lorn! A DREAM. WELL may sleep present us fictions, Since our waking moments teem With such fanciful convictions As make life itself a dream.Half our daylight faith 's a fable; Sleep disports with shadows too, Seeming in their turn as stable As the world we wake to view. Ne'er by day did Reason's mint Give my thoughts a clearer print Of assured reality, Than was left by Phantasy Stamp'd and color'd on my sprite, In a dream of yesternight. In a bark, methought, lone steering, Sad regrets from past existence Came, like gales of chilling breath; Shadow'd in the forward distance Lay the land of Death. Now seeming more, now less remote, But my soul revived at seeing Ocean, like an emerald spark, And as some sweet clarion's breath "Types not this," I said, "fair spirit! "No," he said, "yon phantom's aspect, Thine unspoken thoughts as clear The close-brought tickings of a watch Make not the untold request 'Tis to live again, remeasuring Youth's years, like a scene rehearsed, In thy second lifetime treasuring Knowledge from the first. New begun again? Could thy flight Heaven's lightning shun? If they rule, it shall be o'er our ashes and graves; But we've smote them already with fire on the waves, And new triumphs on land are before us, This day shall ye blush for its story, Accursed may his memory blacken, If a coward there be that would slacken Till we've trampled the turban, and shown ourselves worth Being sprung from and named for the godlike of earth! Strike home, and the world shall revere us Old Greece lightens up with emotion Our hearths shall be kindled in gladness, Singing joy to the brave that deliver'd their charms, When the blood of yon Mussulman cravens SONG. DRINK ye to her that each loves best, Enough, while memory tranced and glad Paints silently the fair, That each should dream of joys he's had, Or yet may hope to share. Yet far, far hence be jest or boast From hallow'd thoughts so dear; But drink to her that each loves most, As she would love to hear. SONG. WITHDRAW not yet those lips and fingers Whose touch to mine is rapture's spell; Life's joy for us a moment lingers, And death seems in the word-Farewell. Time, while I gaze upon thy sweetness, |