TO THE WIND, AT MIDNIGHT. NOT unfamiliar to mine ear, Blasts of the night! ye howl as now With fitful force ye beat. Mine ear has dwelt in silent awe, The howling sweep, the sudden rush; Pour'd deep the hollow dirge. THE EVE OF DEATH. IRREGULAR. I. SILENCE of Death-portentous calm, Those airy forms that yonder fly, Denote that your void fore-runs a storm, That the hour of fate is nigh. I see, I see, on the dim mist borne, The Spirit of battles rear his crest! I see, I see, that e're the morn, His spear will forsake its hated rest, And the widow'd wife of Larrendill will beat her naked breast. II. O'er the smooth bosom of the sullen deep, No softly ruffling zephyrs fly; But Nature sleeps a deathless sleep, For the hour of battle is nigh. Not a loose leaf waves on the dusky oak, I know what the raven saith Strike, oh, ye bards! the melancholy harp, For this is the eve of death. III. Behold, how along the twilight air The shades of our fathers glide! There Morven fled, with the blood-drench'd hair, And Colma with grey side. No gale around its coolness flings, Yet sadly sigh the gloomy trees; And, hark! how the harp's unvisited strings Sound sweet, as if swept by a whispering breeze! 'Tis done! the sun he has set in blood! He will never set more to the brave; Let us pour to the hero the dirge of death THANATOS. OH! who would cherish life, And cling unto this heavy clog of clay, Love this rude world of strife, Where glooms and tempests cloud the fairest day; And syrens lure the wanderer to their wiles! Hateful it is to me, Its riotous railings and revengeful strife; I'm tir'd with all its screams and brutal shouts Dinning the ear; — away — away with life! And welcome, oh! thou silent maid, Who in some foggy vault art laid, And there amid unwholesome damps dost sleep, In such forgetful slumbers deep, Sleepy Death, I welcome thee! Poppies I will ask no more, Death is the best, the only cure, In whose solemn fretted gloom I may lie in mouldering state, With all the grandeur of the great : Carve a stately monument: Then thereon my statue lay, With hands in attitude to pray, And angels serve to hold my head, Duly too at close of day, Let the pealing organ play; And while the harmonious thunders roll, Chaunt a vesper to my soul: Thus how sweet my sleep will be, Shut out from thoughtful misery! ATHANATOS. AWAY with Death away With all her sluggish sleeps and chilling damps, Impervious to the day, Where Nature sinks into inanity. How can the soul desire Such hateful nothingness to crave, And yield with joy the vital fire, To moulder in the grave! Yet mortal life is sad, Eternal storms molest its sullen sky; And sorrows ever rife Drain the sacred fountain dry Away with mortal life! But, hail the calm reality, Hail the Heavenly bowers of peace! And the spirit sinks to ease, Lull'd by distant symphonies. Oh! to think of meeting there The friends whose graves received our tear, The daughter lov'd, the wife ador'd, To our widow'd arms restor❜d; And all the joys which death did sever, Given to us again for ever! Who would cling to wretched life, |