To Mary in Heaven. HOU lingering star, with lessening ray, THOU That lov'st to greet the early morn, Again thou usherest in the day My Mary from my soul was torn. O Mary! dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? That sacred hour can I forget, Can I forget the hallowed grove, Where by the winding Ayr we met, To live one day of parting love? Eternity will not efface Those records dear of transports past; Thy image at our last embrace; Ah! little thought we 't was our last! Ayr gurgling kissed his pebbled shore, O'erhung with wild woods, thickening green; The fragrant birch, and hawthorn hoar, Twined amorous round the raptured scene; Proclaimed the speed of wingèd day. Still o'er these scenes my memory wakes, My Mary, dear departed shade! Where is thy place of blissful rest ? See'st thou thy lover lowly laid? Hear'st thou the groans that rend his breast? ROBERT BURNS. ASTARTE. 93 W Astarte. WHEN the latest strife is lost, and all is done with, Ere we slumber in the spirit and the brain, We drowse back, in dreams, to days that life begun with, I have cast away the tangle and the torment I am touched again with shades of early sadness, And again she comes, with all her silent graces, Of the women whose dead lips I since have pressed. The motion and the fragrance of her garments When vain dreams are stirred with sighing, near the morning, When life's dawning glimmer yet had all the tint there (Ah what feet since then have trodden out the print there!) Did her soft, her silent footsteps fall and pass. They fell lightly, as the dew falls 'mid ungathered Meadow-flowers; and lightly lingered with the dew. Other footsteps fall about me, — faint, uncertain, What is gone, is gone forever. And new fashions With that pining at the bosom as of yore. I remember to have murmured, morn and even : "Though the earth dispart these Earthlies, face from face, Yet the Heavenlies shall surely join in heaven, For the spirit hath no bonds in time or space. "Where it listeth, there it bloweth; all existence "If I fail to find her out by her gold tresses, Brows and breast and lips and language of sweet strains, But my being is confused with new experience, Earth's old sins press fast behind me, weakly wailing; ROBERT BULWER LYTTON. Jump for the gentlemen, — mind your eye! - Five years we've tramped through wind and weather, And slept out-doors when nights were cold, And ate and drank — and starved together. We've learned what comfort is, I tell you! A fire to thaw our thumbs (poor fellow ! The paw he holds up there's been frozen), Plenty of catgut for my fiddle, (This out-door business is bad for strings), Then a few nice buckwheats hot from the griddle, And Roger and I set up for kings! Well, something hot, then, - we won't quarrel. He's thirsty, too, see him nod his head? What a pity, sir, that dogs can't talk! He understands every word that's said, And he knows good milk from water-and-chalk. The truth is, sir, now I reflect, I've been so sadly given to grog, I wonder I've not lost the respect (Here's to you, sir!) even of my dog. But he sticks by, through thick and thin; And this old coat, with its empty pockets, And rags that smell of tobacco and gin, He'll follow while he has eyes in his sockets. There is n't another creature living Would do it, and prove, through every disaster, So fond, so faithful, and so forgiving, To such a miserable, thankless master! No, sir! see him wag his tail and grin! By George! it makes my old eyes water! That is, there's something in this gin That chokes a fellow. But no matter! We'll have some music, if you 're willing, And Roger (hem! what a plague a cough is, sir!) Shall march a little. Start, you villain ! Stand straight! Put up that paw! 'Bout face! Salute your officer! Dress! Take your rifle ! (Some dogs have arms, you see!) Now hold your Cap while the gentlemen give a trifle, To aid a poor old patriot soldier! March! Halt! Now show how the rebel shakes, To honor a jolly new acquaintance. Five yelps, that's five; he's mighty knowing! Some brandy, thank you, there! Why not reform? That's easily said; it passes! But I've gone through such wretched treatment, Sometimes forgetting the taste of bread, And scarce remembering what meat meant, That my poor stomach 's past reform; And there are times when, mad with thinking, I'd sell out heaven for something warm To prop a horrible inward sinking. Is there a way to forget to think? At your age, sir, home, fortune, friends, |