Throughout life's pilgrimage the faithful guide;
Conscience! by whom the soul of man is warn'd
To shun the quicksands of a treach'rous world;
How little art thou heeded!-Yet Life's bark,
Though toss'd by storms of trouble and despair
Upon the billows of uncertainty,
Guided by Conscience, safely shall arrive
At that bless'd port of everlasting rest,
That haven of perpetual delight,
Whose waves pelulcid lave JEHOVAH's throne."
Ha!-see, the awful PREACHER disappears!
His desk and book are gone-and once more all
Is still!-Yet, there's the charnel-house; and there
The auditors in wild amazement stand!-
O let me homeward turn, and meditate
Upon the solemn scene.
(By the Author of "The Arabs.”)
LET the chill Stoic look upon thy reign,
O Beauty! as a pageant, fleet and vain,—
Whate'er, through life, his varied course may be,
Man's pilgrim heart shall turn, sweet shrine, to thee.
Not thine the fault, if false allurements claim
The fool's blind homage in thy sacred name:
They are not fair who boast but outward grace-
The naught but beautiful of form or face;
They are the lovely-they in whom unite
Earth's fleeting charms with Virtue's heavenly light;
Who, though they wither, yet, with faded bloom,
Bear not their all of sweetness to the tomb.
I had a dream, which, in my waking hour,
Seemed less the work of Fancy's airy power
Than Reason's deep creation; for the hue
Of life was o'er it :-life approves it true.
*Written as an Illustration of the Skeleton Trio in the Vignette Title-page.
Methought that I was wandering in a room,
Whose air was naught but music and perfume;
A thousand lights were flaming o'er my head;
And all around me flitted feet, whose tread
Roused not the listening echoes, for each bound
Was but the mute response to softest sound.
Sweet eyes, whose looks were language, and bland
Whose accents died into Æolian songs,
Were there the things of worship; and man's sigh
The incense of his heart's idolatry.
High swelled each breast within that proud saloon;
For midnight there was Fashion's sparkling noon:
The vain beheld a sun in every gem;—
That room was all the universe to them.
But they were not the happy :—who can hide
Th' intranquil heart?—their looks their lips belied.
Stiff in the gorgeous masquerade of state,
The miserably rich, the joyless great,
The beautiful, whose beauty was a care
More deep than wrinkles, sighed, yet would not share
E'en the dull calm which mere exhaustion throws
O'er silken couches-soft without repose.
Foremost, and most conspicuous of the dance,
I now heheld three glowing forms advance,
Who seemed the envy or the boast of all:-
For they were deemed the Graces of the ball.
The first,-in spangled vesture-as she came,
Shot from her eye keen Wit's electric flame,
Whose sparks, tho' playful, like the lightning's dart,
Fall on the cold, alike, and feeling heart.
The next had veiled beneath a dazzling dress
Of vain adornments her own loveliness,
Resembling but that elegant deceit,
The rose of Art-superb, without a sweet.
The last was gentlest; but her soul—all love,
Unveiled as Venus in her Paphian grove-
Burned on her lips and quickly-heaving breast,
As they were things but purposed to be press'd.
With arms entwined, these Graces of a night,-
WILD WIT, FALSE TASTE, and AMOROUS DELIGht,
Praised by the many, by the few admired,
Performed their part, then suddenly retired :-
The dance stood still-men watched the closing door!
Sighed-turned-and all went gaily as before.
Contemplating the scene, my sight grew dim;—
The ceaseless whirling made my senses swim:
Quick o'er my frame there came a torpid chill;
The tapers died; and all was dark and still;
All, save the glimmerings of a sullen lamp,
And the cold droppings of sepulchral damp,
Which, falling round me, through the lurid gloom,
Told that I trod the charnel of the tomb.
It was a mausoleum, vast and high,
Whose soil was reeking with mortality:
There, in the midst, O sight of horror! stood
Three forms whose aspect chilled my vital blood:
Grouped on a grave's cold slab, like things that breathed,
Three skeletons their fleshless arms enwreathed;
But moveless-silent as the ponderous stone
Whereon they stood:-And I was all alone!
"O for the Ethiop's sable charms to hide
Those hideous vestiges of Beauty's pride!"
To this I heard a hollow voice reply,
"Behold the GRACES!-mortal, feast thine eye!"
But I did turn me, sickening with disgust;
For I beheld them mouldering into dust.
"And is this all, O Beauty! this the close Of thy brief transit?-this thy last repose?" As thus I spake, a slow expanding ray
Broke through the gloomy mist, like opening day;
Unfolding to my gaze a spacious scene
Of hill and valley, clothed in fadeless green.
On every side, a thousand varied flowers
Seemed dropping from the sun, in odorous showers:
And there were groves and avenues, all graced
With Temples and with monuments of Taste;
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