THERE is a change-and I am poor; Your love hath been, nor long ago, A fountain at my fond heart's door, Whose only business was to flow; And flow it did; not taking heed Of its own bounty, or my need. What happy moments did I count ! Blest was I then all bliss above! Now, for that consecrated fount Of murmuring, sparkling, living love, What have I shall I dare to tell? A comfortless and hidden well. A well of love-it may be deep- I trust it is,--and never dry: What matter? if the waters sleep In silence and obscurity.
-Such change, and at the very door Of my fond heart, hath made me poor. 1806.
LET other bards of angels sing, Bright suns without a spot; But thou art no such perfect thing: Rejoice that thou art not!
Heed not tho' none should call thee fair So, Mary, let it be
If nought in loveliness compare With what thou art to me.
True beauty dwells in deep retreats, Whose veil is unremoved
Till heart with heart in concord beats, And the lover is beloved.
YES! thou art fair, yet be not moved To scorn the declaration,
That sometimes I in thee have loved My fancy's own creation. Imagination needs must stir;
Dear Maid, this truth believe, Minds that have nothing to confer Find little to perceive.
Be pleased that nature made thee fit To feed my heart's devotion, By laws to which all Forms submit In sky, air, earth, and ocean.
How rich that forehead's calm expanse! How bright that heaven-directed glance! -Waft her to glory, wingèd Powers, Ere sorrow be renewed,
And intercourse with mortal hours Bring back a humbler mood!
So looked Cecilia when she drew An Angel from his station;
So looked; not ceasing to pursue Her tuneful adoration!
But hand and voice alike are still; No sound here sweeps away the will That gave it birth: in service meek One upright arm sustains the cheek, And one across the bosom lies- That rose, and now forgets to rise, Subdued by breathless harmonies Of meditative feeling;
Mute strains from worlds beyond the skie~ Through the pure light of female eyes, Their sanctity revealing!
O DEARER far than light and life are dear, Full oft our human foresight I deplore; Trembling, through my unworthiness, with fear That friends, by death disjoined, may meet no more!
Misgivings, hard to vanquish or control, Mix with the day, and cross the hour of rest; While all the future, for thy purer soul, With "sober certainties" of love is blest. That sigh of thine, not meant for human ear, Tells that these words thy humbleness offend; Yet bear me up-else faltering in the rear Of a steep march: support me to the end. Peace settles where the intellect is meek, And Love is dutiful in thought and deed; Through Thee communion with that Love I seek:
The faith Heaven strengthens where he moulds the Creed.
OF A FORSAKEN INDIAN WOMAN.
[When a Northern Indian, from sickness, is unable to continue his journey with his companions, he is left behind, covered over with deer-skins, and is supplied with water, food, and fuel, if the situation of the place will afford it. He is informed of the track which his companions intend to pursue, and if he be unable to follow, or overtake them, he perishes alone in the desert; unless he should have the good fortune to fall in with some other tribes of Indians, The females are equally, or still more, exposed to the same fate. See that very interes ng work "Hearne's Journey from Hudson's Bay to the Northern Ocean. In the high northern latitudes, as the same writer informs us, when the northern lights vary their position in the air, they make a rustling and a crackling noise, as alluded to in the following poem.]
BEFORE I see another day, Oh let my body die away!
There dwelt we, as happy as birds in their bowers;
Unfettered as bees that in gardens abide ; We could do what we liked with the land, it
And for us the brook murmured that ran by its side.
But now we are strangers, go early or late; And often, like one overburthened with sin, With my hand on the latch of the half-opened gate,
I look at the fields, but I cannot go in! When I walk by the hedge on a bright summer's day,
Or sit in the shade of my grandfather's tree, A stern face it puts on, as if ready to say, "What ails you, that you must come creeping to me!"
With our pastures about us, we could not be sad:
Our comfort was near if we ever were crost; But the comfort, the blessings, and wealth that we had,
We slighted them all,-and our birth-right was lost.
Oh, ill-judging sire of an innocent son
Who must now be a wanderer! but peace to that strain!
Think of evening's repose when our labour was done,
The sabbath's return, and its leisure's soft chain !
And in sickness, if night had been sparing of
WHERE art thou, my beloved Son, Where art thou, worse to me than dead? Oh find me, prosperous or undone ! Or, if the grave be now thy bed, Why am I ignorant of the same That I may rest; and neither blame Nor sorrow may attend thy name?
II. Seven alas! to have received years, No tidings of an only child; To have despaired, have hoped, believed, And been for evermore beguiled; Sometimes with thoughts of very bliss!
I catch at them, and then I miss;
Was ever darkness like to this?
Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings, And blasts of heaven will aid their flight; They mount-how short a voyage brings The wanderers back to their delight! Chains tie us down by land and sea; And wishes, vain as mine, may be All that is left to comfort thee. VIII.
Perhaps some dungeon hears thee groan, Maimed, mangled by inhuman men ; Or thou upon a desert thrown Inheritest the lion's den;
Or hast been summoned to the deep, Thou, thou and all thy mates, to keep An incommunicable sleep.
I look for ghosts; but none will force Their way to me: 'tis falsely said That there was ever intercourse Between the living and the dead; For, surely, then I should have sight Of him I wait for day and night, With love and longings infinite.
My apprehensions come in crowds; I dread the rustling of the grass; The very shadows of the clouds Have power to shake me as they pass: I question things and do not find One that will answer to my mind; And all the world appears unkind.
Beyond participation lie
My troubles, and beyond relief: If any chance to heave a sigh,
They pity me, and not my grief. Then come to me, my Son, or send Some tidings that my woes may end; I have no other earthly friend! 1804.
THE COTTAGER TO HER INFANT. BY MY SISTER.
THE days are cold, the nights are long, The north-wind sings a doleful song; Then hush again upon my breast; All merry things are now at rest, Save thee, my pretty Love! The kitten sleeps upon the hearth, The crickets long have ceased their mirth; There's nothing stirring in the house Save one wee, hungry, nibbling mouse, Then why so busy thou?
Nay! start not at that sparkling light: 'Tis but the moon that shines so bright On the window pane bedropped with rain: Then, little Darling! sleep again,
DEPARTED Child! I could forget thee once Though at my bosom nursed; this woeful gain Thy dissolution brings, that in my soul Is present and perpetually abides
A shadow, never, never to be displaced By the returning substance, seen or touched, Seen by mine eyes, or clasped in my embrace. Absence and death how differ they! and how Shall I admit that nothing can restore What one short sigh so easily removed?- Death, life, and sleep, reality and thought Assist me, God, their boundaries to know, O teach me calm submission to thy Will! The Child she mourned had overstepped the pale
Of Infancy, but still did breathe the air That sanctifies its confines, and partook Reflected beams of that celestial light To all the Little-ones on sinful earth Not unvouchsafed-a light that warmed and cheered
Those several qualities of heart and mind Which, in her own blest nature, rooted deep, Daily before the Mother's watchful eye, And not hers only, their peculiar charms Unfolded, beauty, for its present self, And for its promises to future years, With not unfrequent rapture fondly hailed. Have you espied upon a dewy lawn A pair of Leverets each provoking each To a continuance of their fearless sport, Two separate Creatures in their several gifts Abounding, but so fashioned that, in all That Nature prompts them to display, their looks,
Their starts of motion and their fits of rest, An undistinguishable style appears And character of gladness, as if Spring
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