And worldly grandeur I despise, And Fortune with her gifts and lies.
Alas! the fowls of heaven have wings, And blasts of heaven will aid their flight; - how short a voyage brings
They mount, 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.
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: 't is 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, Then 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!
THE COTTAGER TO HER INFANT.
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, And wake when it is day.
DEPARTED Child! I could forget thee once, Though at my bosom nursed; this woful 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
Lodged in their innocent bosoms, and the spirit Of the rejoicing morning were their own.
Such union, in the lovely Girl maintained And her twin Brother, had the parent seen, Ere, pouncing like a ravenous bird of prey, Death in a moment parted them, and left The Mother, in her turns of anguish, worse Than desolate; for ofttimes from the sound Of the survivor's sweetest voice, (dear child, He knew it not!) and from his happiest looks, Did she extract the food of self-reproach, As one that lived ungrateful for the stay By Heaven afforded to uphold her maimed And tottering spirit. And full oft the Boy, Now first acquainted with distress and grief, Shrunk from his Mother's presence, shunned with fear
Her sad approach, and stole away to find, In his known haunts of joy, where'er he might, A more congenial object. But, as time Softened her pangs and reconciled the child To what he saw, he gradually returned, Like a scared Bird encouraged to renew A broken intercourse; and, while his eyes Were yet with pensive fear and gentle awe Turned upon her who bore him, she would stoop To imprint a kiss that lacked not power to spread Faint color over both their pallid cheeks, And stilled his tremulous lip. Thus they were calmed
And cheered; and now together breathe fresh air In open fields; and when the glare of day
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