THE SLEEPER.

"For sleep is awful."

OH! lightly, lightly tread!
A holy thing is sleep,
On the worn spirit shed,

BYRON.

And eyes that wake to weep.

A holy thing from Heaven,
A gracious dewy cloud,
A covering mantle given
The weary to enshroud.

Oh! lightly, lightly tread!
Revere the pale still brow,
The meekly-drooping head,

The long hair's willowy flow.

Ye know not what ye do,

That call the slumberer back, From the world unseen by you Unto life's dim faded track.

Her soul is far away,

In her childhood's land, perchance,

Where her young sisters play,

Where shines her mother's glance.

Some old sweet native sound

Her spirit haply weaves;

A harmony profound

Of woods with all their leaves;

THE MIRROR IN THE DESERTED HALL. 157

A murmur of the sea,

A laughing tone of streams:-
Long may her sojourn be

In the music land of dreams!

Each voice of love is there,
Each gleam of beauty fled,
Each lost one still more fair-
Oh! lightly, lightly tread!

THE MIRROR IN THE DESERTED HALL.

O, DIM, forsaken mirror!

How many a stately throng

Hath o'er thee gleam'd, in vanish'd hours
Of the wine-cup and the song!

The song hath left no echo;

The bright wine hath been quaff'd;
And hush'd is every silvery voice
That lightly here hath laugh'd.

Oh! mirror, lonely mirror,

Thou of the silent hall!

Thou hast been flush'd with beauty's bloom

Is this, too, vanish'd all?

It is, with the scatter'd garlands
Of triumphs long ago;

With the melodies of buried lyres;
With the faded rainbow's glow.
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And for all the gorgeous pageants, For the glance of gem and plume, For lamp, and harp, and rosy wreath, And vase of rich perfume.

Now, dim, forsaken mirror,

Thou givest but faintly back
The quiet stars, and the sailing moon,
On her solitary track.

And thus with man's proud spirit

Thou tellest me 'twill be,

When the forms and hues of this world fade
From his memory, as from thee:

And his heart's long-troubled waters
At last in stillness lie,

Reflecting but the images

Of the solemn world on high.

TO THE DAUGHTER OF BERNARD BARTON,

THE QUAKER POET.

HAPPY thou art, the child of one
Who in each lowly flower,
Each leaf that glances to the sun,
Or trembles with the shower;

In each soft shadow of the sky,
Or sparkle of the stream,
Will guide thy kindling spirit's eye
To trace the Love Supreme.

THE STAR OF THE MINE.

So shall deep quiet fill thy breast,
A joy in wood and wild;-

And e'en for this I call thee blest,
The gentle poet's child!

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THE STAR OF THE MINE.

FROM the deep chambers of a mine,
With heavy gloom o'erspread,
I saw a star at noontide shine,
Serenely o'er my head.

I had not seen it 'midst the glow
Of the rich upper day;
But in that shadowy world below,
How my heart bless'd its ray!

And still, the farther from my sight
Torches and lamps were borne,
The purer, lovelier, seem'd the light
That wore its beams unshorn.

Oh! what is like that heavenly spark?
-A friend's kind steadfast eye;

Where, brightest when the world grows dark,
Hope, cheer, and comfort lie!

WASHINGTON'S STATUE.

SENT FROM ENGLAND TO AMERICA.

YES! rear thy guardian hero's form
On thy proud soil, thou western world!
A watcher through each sign of storm,
O'er freedom's flag unfurl'd.

There, as before a shrine, to bow,
Bid thy true sons their children lead:
The language of that noble brow
For all things good shall plead.

The spirit rear'd in patriot fight,

The virtue born of home and hearth,

There calmly throned, a holy light pour o'er chainless earth.

Shall

And let that work of England's hand,
Sent through the blast and surge's roar,
So girt with tranquil glory stand,

For ages on thy shore!

Such, through all time, the greetings be, That with the Atlantic billow sweep!

Telling the mighty and the free

Of brothers o'er the deep.