Bright on the holy mountain, round the throne,
Bright where in borrowed light the far stars shone.
Look down! the depths are bright! and hear them cry,
"Light! light!"-Look up! 'tis rushing down from high!
Regions on regions-far away they shine:
'Tis light ineffable, 'tis light divine!
"Immortal light, and life for evermore!"
Off through the deeps is heard from shore to shore
Of rolling worlds-" Man, wake thee from the sod-
Wake thee from death-awake!-and live with God!”
To Pneuma.-JAMES WAL LIS EASTBURN.
TEMPESTS their furious course may sweep
Swiftly o'er the troubled deep,
Darkness may lend her gloomy aid,
And wrap the groaning world in shade;
But man can show a darker hour,
And bend beneath a stronger power;-
There is a tempest of the soul,
A gloom where wilder billows roll!
The howling wilderness may spread
Its pathless deserts, parched and dread,
Where not a blade of herbage blooms,
Nor yields the breeze its soft perfumes;
Where silence, death, and horror reign,
Unchecked, across the wide domain;-
There is a desert of the MIND
More hopeless, dreary, undefined!
There Sorrow, moody Discontent,
And gnawing Care, are wildly blent;
There Horror hangs her darkest clouds,
And the whole scene in gloom enshrouds;
A sickly ray is cast around,
-Where nought but dreariness is found;
A feeling that may not be told,
Dark, rending, lonely, drear, and cold.
The wildest ills that darken life
Are rapture to the bosom's strife:
The tempest, in its blackest form,
Is beauty to the bosom's storm;
The ocean, lashed to fury loud,
Its high wave mingling with the cloud,
Is peaceful, sweet serenity
To passion's dark and boundless sea.
There sleeps no calm, there smiles no rest,
When storms are warring in the breast;
There is no moment of repose
In bosoms lashed by hidden woes;
The scorpion sting the fury rears,
And every trembling fibre tears;
The vulture preys with bloody beak
Upon the heart that can but break!
To a Star.-LUCRETIA MARIA DAVIDSON.
Written in her fifteenth year.
THOU brightly glittering star of even,
Thou gem upon the brow of heaven!
Oh! were this fluttering spirit free,
How quick 'twould spread its wings to thee!
How calmly, brightly, dost thou shine,
Like the pure lamp in virtue's shrine!
Sure the fair world which thou may'st boast
Was never ransomed, never lost.
There, beings pure as heaven's own air,
Their hopes, their joys, together share;
While hovering angels touch the string,
And seraphs spread the sheltering wing.
There, cloudless days and brilliant nights,
Illumed by heaven's refulgent lights;
There, seasons, years, unnoticed roll,
And unregretted by the soul.
Thou little sparkling star of even,
Thou gem upon an azure heaven!
How swiftly will I soar to thee,
When this imprisoned soul is free!
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language. For his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty; and she glides
Into his darker musings with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart,---
Go forth unto the open sky, and list
To nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air-
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course. Nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many teal,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
*This poem, so much admired, both in England and America, was first published in 1817, in the North American Review. The following verses were then prefixed to it; they are in themselves beautiful, but more so as an introduction to the solemn grandeur of the piece which they preceded.
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix forever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone; nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills,
Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun; the vales,
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty; and the complaining brooks,
That make the meadow green; and, poured round all,
Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,-
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its boscm. Take the wings
Of morning, and the Barcan desert pierce;
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings; yet-the dead are there;
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest; and what if thou shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron, and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant, in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off,—
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those, who, in their turn, shall follow them.
So live, that, when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Sacred Melody.-NEW YORK AMERICAN.
"Sing to the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea." Exodus xv. 26.
YE daughters and soldiers of Israel, look back!
Where where are the thousands who shadowed your track-
The chariots that shook the deep earth as they rolled-
The banners of silk, and the helmets of gold?
Where are they-the vultures, whose beaks would have fed
On the tide of your hearts ere the pulses had fled?
Give glory to God, who in mercy arose,
And strewed mid the waters the strength of our foes!
When we travelled the waste of the desert by day,
With his banner-cloud's motion he marshalled our way;
When we saw the tired sun in his glory expire,
Before us he walked, in a pillar of fire!
But this morn, and the Israelites' strength was a reed,
That shook with the thunder of chariot and steed:
Where now are the swords and their far-flashing sweep?
Their lightnings are quenched in the depths of the deep.
O thou, who redeemest the weak one at length,
And scourgest the strong in the pride of their strength
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