Is not true Love of higher price O! Asra, Asra! couldst thou see (This separation is, alas! Too great a punishment to bear; O! take my life, or let me pass That life, that happy life, with her!) The perils, erst with steadfast eye ITS EPITAPH ON AN INFANT. TS balmy lips the infant blest Relaxing from its mother's breast, How sweet it heaves the happy sigh Of innocent satiety! And such my infant's latest sigh! TELL'S BIRTH-PLACE. IMITATED FROM STOLBERG. I. MARK this holy chapel well! The birthplace, this, of William Tell. Here, where stands God's altar dread, Stood his parents' marriage-bed. II. Here first, an infant to her breast, Him his loving mother prest; And kiss'd the babe, and bless'd the day, III. "Vouchsafe him health, O God! and give IV. God gave him reverence of laws, Yet stirring blood in Freedom's cause— A spirit to his rocks akin, The eye of the hawk, and the fire therein ! V. To Nature and to Holy Writ Alone did God the boy commit: Where flash'd and roar'd the torrent, oft His soul found wings, and soar'd aloft ! VI. The straining oar and chamois chase Had form'd his limbs to strength and grace : VII. He knew not that his chosen hand, HUMAN LIFE. ON THE DENIAL OF IMMORTALITY. A FRAGMENT. F dead, we cease to be; if total gloom IF Swallow up life's brief flash for aye, we fare As summer-gusts, of sudden birth and doom, Whose sound and motion not alone declare, But are their whole of being! If the breath Be Life itself, and not its task and tent, If even a soul like Milton's can know death; O Man! thou vessel purposeless, unmeant, Yet drone-hive strange of phantom purposes, Surplus of Nature's dread activity, Which, as she gazed on some nigh-finish'd vase, Retreating slow, with meditative pause, She form'd with restless hands unconsciously. Blank accident! nothing's anomaly ! If rootless thus, thus substanceless thy state, That such a thing as thou feel'st warm or cold? MOLES. -THEY shrink in, as Moles (Nature's mute monks, live mandrakes of the ground) Creep back from Light-then listen for its sound ;See but to dread, and dread they know not whyThe natural alien of their negative eye. THE VISIT OF THE GODS. IMITATED FROM SCHILLER. NEVER, believe me, Appear the Immortals, Scarce had I welcomed the sorrow-beguiler, throne They advance, they float in, the Olympians all! How shall I yield you Celestial quire? Me rather, bright guests! with your wings of upbuoyance Bear aloft to your homes, to your banquets of joy ance, That the roofs of Olympus may echo my lyre! Hah! we mount! on their pinions they waft up my soul ! O give me the nectar ! O fill me the bowl! Give him the nectar! Pour out for the poet, Hebe! pour free! Quicken his eyes with celestial dew, That Styx the detested no more he may view, Forbids me to die! |