THINGS UNSEEN.
O! WHAT Sights hath the eye not seen!
Spring abroad in her robe of green;
And her thousand, thousand flowers that blow
In the forest shade, by the fountain's flow;
Ocean at rest when his wrath is o'er,
With the moon's soft rainbow shining o'er;
And the host of ministering stars that wait,
Each with its song, at Heaven's gate.
Sounds of delight on every breeze!
The music, at midnight, of waving trees;
The song of the lark in the ear of morn;
The far-off blast of the hunter's horn;
Eolian harpings on summer's eve,
Like angel-whispers to souls that grieve;
The hymns of joy that from young lips flow,
And the voice of friendship in hours of woe.
Who can tell all that hath rapt the thought
In holy times, when the heart is fraught
With a gush of sacred joy, that brings
Into the bosom all lovely things?
Glimpses of Heaven on the poet's eye,
Visions of glory that cannot die,
Hallowing each scene of beauty here
As the promise and type of a happier sphere.
But the eye hath not seen, nor the ear hath heard,
Nor the heart in its inmost depths been stirred
With the thought of those wonders, by angels told,
In the temple on high, to their harps of gold.
The spirit e'en here often cowers her wings
At the mighty shadows of future things,
Or rejoices, in glimpses of hope, to descry
The dawn of immortal light from on high:
But her noblest visions are shaded here,
And her happiest dreams have a tint of fear,
And the lyre of thought's most trancing tone
Is woke by the wilderness-wind alone:
It hangs o'er the grave; but Earth's spell shall
And the soul of all-glorious sounds awake,
Touch'd into birth by HIM whose love
Shall win its eternal song above.
"BELOVED VALE!" I said, "when I shall con
Those many records of my childish years,
Remembrance of myself and of my fears
Will press me down: to think of what is gone
Will be an awful thought, if life have one."
But when into the vale I came, no fears
Distressed me; from mine eyes escaped no tears;
Deep thought, or awful vision, had I none.
By doubts and thousand petty fancies crost,
I stood of simple shame the blushing thrall;
So narrow seemed the brooks, the fields so small.
A juggler's balls old Time about him tossed;
I looked, I stared, I smiled, I laughed; and all
The weight of sadness was in wonder lost.
A VALENTINE.
WANTED, a hand to hold mine own,
As down life's vale I glide;
Wanted, an arm to lean upon,
For ever by my side.
Wanted, a firm and steady foot,
With step secure and free,
To keep its straight and onward pace
Over life's path with me.
Wanted, a form erect and high,
A head above mine own
So much, that I might walk beneath
Its shadow o'er me thrown.
Wanted, an eye, within whose depth
Mine own might look, and see
Uprisings from a guileless heart
O'erflown with love for me.
Wanted, a lip whose kindest smile
Would speak for me alone;
A voice, whose richest melody
Would breathe affection's tone.
Wanted, a true religious soul,
To pious purpose given,
With whom my own might pass along
The road that leads to heaven.
GIFTS FOR THE PAST.
THE past-now what shall we give the past?
Oh! give it tears
For the sorrows that heavily shadows cast
O'er our early years:
For the friends that are friends to us no more,
For the grief behind and the gloom before;
For love that is weeping beside the grave,-
It will perish by those whom it could not save:
Long may it mourn over those beneath,
Lingering a life that is worse than death;
For brief is the reign of the sunny hour,
Long is the shadow and the shower:
For pleasures in which we take no part,
For weariness lying like frost on the heart,
For a heath worn out-a sky o'ercast,
The past-now what shall we give the past?
Oh, give it tears!
The past-now what shall we give the past?
Oh, give it smiles.
For falsehood, ending in tears at last,
No more beguiles:
For the pleasures from which we turn aside,
For the friends whose flattery we now deride
They came to our side in the leaf and the flower, They all fell off in the winter hour:
|