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What if those bright fires
Shine subject to decay,

Sons haply of extinguished sires,

Themselves to lose their light, or pass away

Like clouds before the wind,

Be thanks poured out to Him whose hand bestows, Nightly, on human kind

That image of endurance and repose.

-And though to every draught of vital breath Renewed throughout the bounds of earth or ocean, The melancholy gates of Death

Respond with sympathetic motion;

Though all that feeds on nether air,

Howe'er magnificent or fair,

Grows but to perish, and entrust

Its ruins to their kindred dust;

Yet, by the Almighty's ever-during care,
Her procreant vigils Nature keeps

Amid the unfathomable deeps;

And saves the peopled fields of earth
From dread of emptiness or dearth.

Thus, in their stations, lifting tow'rd the sky
The foliaged head in cloud-like majesty,
The shadow-casting race of trees survive :
Thus, in the train of Spring, arrive

Sweet flowers;-what living eye hath viewed
Their myriads?-endlessly renewed,

Wherever strikes the sun's glad ray ;
Where'er the subtle waters stray;
Wherever sportive zephyrs bend
Their course, or genial showers descend!
Mortals, rejoice! the very Angels quit
Their mansions unsusceptible of change,
Amid your pleasant bowers to sit,
And through your sweet vicissitudes to

range e!"

IV.

O, nursed at happy distance from the cares
Of a too-anxious world, mild pastoral Muse!
That, to the sparkling crown Urania wears,
And to her sister Clio's laurel wreath,

Prefer'st a garland culled from purple heath,
Or blooming thicket moist with morning dews;
Was such bright Spectacle vouchsafed to me?
And was it granted to the simple ear
Of thy contented Votary

Such melody to hear!

Him rather suits it, side by side with thee,
Wrapped in a fit of pleasing indolence,

While thy tired lute hangs on the hawthorn-tree,
To lie and listen, till o'er-drowsèd sense
Sinks, hardly conscious of the influence,
To the soft murmur of the vagrant Bee.
-A slender sound! yet hoary Time
Doth to the Soul exalt it with the chime

Of all his years;-a company

Of ages coming, ages gone;

(Nations from before them sweeping,
Regions in destruction steeping,)
But every awful note in unison

With that faint utterance, which tells
Of treasure sucked from buds and bells,
For the pure keeping of those waxen cells;
Where Shea statist prudent to confer
Upon the public weal; a warrior bold,
Radiant all over with unburnished gold,
And armed with living spear for mortal fight;
A cunning forager

That spreads no waste; a social builder; one
In whom all busy offices unite

With all fine functions that afford delight

Safe through the winter storm in quiet dwells!

V.

And is She brought within the power
Of vision ?-o'er this tempting flower
Hovering until the petals stay

Her flight, and take its voice away !—
Observe each wing!-a tiny van!
The structure of her laden thigh,
How fragile! yet of ancestry
Mysteriously remote and high;
High as the imperial front of man ;

The roseate bloom on woman's cheek;
The soaring eagle's curvèd beak ;
The white plumes of the floating swan;
Old as the tiger's paw, the lion's mane

Ere shaken by that mood of stern disdain

At which the desert trembles.-Humming Bee!
Thy sting was needless then, perchance unknown,
The seeds of malice were not sown ;

All creatures met in peace, from fierceness free,
And no pride blended with their dignity.
-Tears had not broken from their source;
Nor anguish strayed from her Tartarean den;
The golden years maintained a course

Not undiversified though smooth and even ;

We were not mocked with glimpse and shadow then, Bright Seraphs mixed familiarly with men ;

And earth and stars composed a universal heaven!

XLI.

DEVOTIONAL INCITEMENTS.

'Not to the earth confined,

Ascend to heaven.'

WHERE will they stop, those breathing Powers,
The Spirits of the new-born flowers?
They wander with the breeze, they wind
Where'er the streams a passage find ;

Up from their native ground they rise
In mute aërial harmonies;

From humble violet-modest thyme-
Exhaled, the essential odours climb,
As if no space below the sky

Their subtle flight could satisfy:

Heaven will not tax our thoughts with pride

If like ambition be their guide.

Roused by this kindliest of May-showers,

The spirit-quickener of the flowers,
That with moist virtue softly cleaves
The buds, and freshens the young leaves,
The birds pour forth their souls in notes
Of rapture from a thousand throats-
Here checked by too impetuous haste,
While there the music runs to waste,

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