Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

O Poesy, bewitching power!

What fascinations are thy dower!
Thou dwellest in a fairy round,
Thou treadest on enchanted ground;
"The common air, the sun, the skies,
To thee are opening paradise."

Thy touch can turn to more than gold
The meanest object we behold;
Thy master spell all nature owns,
Thou giv'st a meaning to the tones
Of summer breeze and wintry gale;
Thou add'st a shade to midnight's veil,
Splendour to noon,- to pensive eve
More touching softness,-and dost weave
For morn a coronal of flowers,

Such as but grow in Fancy's bowers.
While Science, with unpitying hand,
"Unweaves the rainbow," thou dost stand
In tranced gaze, but dost not pause,
Pleased with th' effect, to ask the cause.

Ev'n now, what charms thy magic spell

Has thrown around a hermit's cell: Who that has read that witching lay, "But long'd for wings to flee away”

* See Keat.

To some sweet spot of rest, and share

The hermit's cell, the hermit's fare,

Such fare, as Nature in the wild
Can proffer to her lowly child,
Served up in quaint but fitting sort,
In dish of veined maple wrought;
And there to learn the saintly lore
Which holy Nature has in store

For those who view with thoughtful eye
The wonders of the earth and sky,

And, freed from turmoil and annoy,

There woo sweet Peace, and Peace enjoy.

Peace!

fond enthusiast; deem'st thou, then,

She needs must live in lonely glen,

In desert wilds, or mountain cave,
Lull'd by the fountain's welling wave,
Or by the many-voiced trees,

Slow waving in the midnight breeze?

Ah! foolish one-recall that thought;

There's not on earth one certain spot
Where Peace doth make her home. Oh! yes,

One home she hath, one dwelling-place,

From which, for heav'n, she scarce would part
The loving, lowly, contrite heart!

She hath (though rarely there, I ween)
In courts and stately halls been seen;

More frequent in the humble cot,
Smoothing the peasant's rugged lot;
In busy mart, and dusky street
Sometimes her gentle form we meet;
And sometimes by the loathsome bed
Where squalid sickness rests her head.

Go, — pierce yon murky alley, where
None ever breathed untainted air,

Where all in vain the glorious sun
Struggles to chase the smoke-wreaths dun:
Ascend yon broken, winding stair,

Enter that room, what meets thee there?

Nay, shrink not with fastidious pride,

But take thy stand that couch beside ;
There, though disease, and want, and pain,

Their victim bind with triple chain,

There shalt thou see earth's noblest sight,

A spirit wing'd for heavenward flight.
There Peace, sweet Peace, has found her way,

And turn'd thick midnight into day.

Now, hie thee hence, and dream no more

Of hermit's cell, and frugal store;

Of skull, of maple-dish, or glass

Which marks how swift the hours do pass;

But ply in Duty's path thy feet,

'Tis likeliest there sweet Peace thou 'lt meet;

And, if a lowly heart be thine,

Be sure she'll make that heart her shrine.

CHRIST'S THORN.

RHAMNUS PALIURUS.

"'T was sin mair'd all; and the revolt of man,

That source of evils not exhausted yet.
Garden of God, how terrible the change
Thy groves and lawns then witness'd!"

WHEN Nature" lectures man in heavenly truth," how wise, how various are her lessons! If the mind needs soothing and encouraging, she leads us to those objects which afford pure proofs of the wisdom and goodness of the great Creator; if elevating, she bids us look on "the heavens, the work of His fingers;" if warning, she tells us of the earthquake and the tempest, or, perhaps, with more of pathos, she points to the thorns and the thistles, which beset our every-day path, thence taking occasion to remind us, for whose offence "the prickly curse" was inflicted. "Cursed is the ground

for thy sake; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee." Such was a part of the doom denounced

against man when he eat of the forbidden tree.

« AnteriorContinuar »