Yet must I perish if the gift depart Leave me not, Love! to mine own beating heart! The music from my lyre With thy swift step would flee; The world's cold breath would quench the starry fire In my deep soul—a temple fill'd with thee! Seal'd would the fountains lie, The waves of harmony, Which thou alone canst free! Like a shrine 'midst rocks forsaken, Such would my spirit be; So mute, so void, so shatter'd, Bereft of thee! Leave me not, Love! or if this earth Yield not for thee a home, If the bright summer-land of thy pure birth Send thee a silvery voice that whispers" Come !" Then, with the glory from the rose, With the sparkle from the stream, With the light thy rainbow-presence throws Over the poet's dream; With all th' Elysian hues Thy pathway that suffuse, With joy, with music, from the fading grove, Take me, too, heavenward, on thy wing, sweet Love. MUSIC AT A DEATHBED. "Music! why thy power employ Only for the sons of joy? Only for the smiling guests WARTON FROM EURIPIdes. BRING music! stir the brooding air With an ethereal breath! Bring sounds, my struggling soul to bear A voice, a flute, a dreamy lay, Oh no! not such! that lingering spell When my wean'd heart hath said farewell, Let not a sigh of human love Let no disturbing echo move But pour a solemn-breathing strain Fill'd with the soul of prayer; Let a life's conflict, fear, and pain, Deeper, yet deeper! in my thought A passion unto music given, A sweet, yet piercing cry: Deeper! Oh! may no richer power Can all, which crowds on earth's last hour, Away! and hush the feeble song, And let the chord be still'd! Far in another land erelong My dream shall be fulfill'd. MARSHAL SCHWERIN'S GRAVE. ["I came upon the tomb of Marshal Schwerin-a plain quiet cenotaph, erected in the middle of a wide corn-field, on the very spot where he closed a long, faithful, and glorious career in arms. He fell here at eighty years of age, at the head of his own regiment, the standard of it waving in his hand. His seat was in the leathern saddle his foot in the iron stirrup his fingers reined THOU didst fall in the field with thy silver hair, Thou wert laid to rest from thy battles there, In the camp, on the steed, to the bugle's blast, And a warrior's bier was thine at last, Many had fallen by thy side, old chief! The soldier's heart at thy step leap'd high, Now may'st thou slumber-thy work is done- From the stormy fight in thy fame thou'rt gone, The corn sheaves whisper thy grave around, A quiet home from the noonday's glare, Didst thou toil through the days of thy silvery hair, THE FALLEN LIME-TREE. Он, joy of the peasant! O stately lime! Screen'd our grey forefathers From the noontide's glow; Thou, beneath whose branches, Touch'd with moonlight gleams, Lay our early poets, Wrapt in fairy dreams. O tree of our fathers! O hallow'd tree! |