FILL'D is Life's goblet to the brim;
And though my eyes with tears are dim,
I see its sparkling bubbles swim,
And chant a melancholy hymn
With solemn voice and slow.
No purple flowers,-no garlands green,
Conceal the goblet's shade or sheen,
Nor maddening draughts of Hippocrene,
Like gleams of sunshine, flash between
Thick leaves of misletoe.
This goblet, wrought with curious art,
Is fill'd with waters, that upstart,
When the deep fountains of the heart,
By strong convulsions rent apart,
Are running all to waste.
And as it mantling passes round,
With fennel is it wreath'd and crown'd,
Whose seed and foliage sun-imbrown'd
Are in its waters steep'd and drown'd,
And give a bitter taste.
Above the lowly plants it towers,
The fennel, with its yellow flowers,
And in an earlier age than ours
Was gifted with the wondrous powers,
Lost vision to restore.
THE GOBLET OF LIFE.
It gave new strength, and fearless mood;
And gladiators, fierce and rude,
Mingled it in their daily food;
And he who battled and subdued,
A wreath of fennel wore.
Then in Life's goblet freely press
The leaves that give it bitterness,
Nor prize the colour'd waters less,
For in thy darkness and distress
New light and strength they give!
And he who has not learn'd to know
How false its sparkling bubbles show,
How bitter are the drops of woe,
With which its brim may overflow, .
He has not learn'd to live.
The prayer of Ajax was for light;
Through all that dark and desperate fight,
The blackness of that noonday night,
He ask'd but the return of sight,
To see his foeman's face.
Let our unceasing, earnest prayer
Be, too, for light,-for strength to bear
Our portion of the weight of care,
That crushes into dumb despair
LINES ON LEAVING EUROPE.
I pledge you in this cup of grief,
Where floats the fennel's bitter leaf!
The Battle of our Life is brief,
The alarm, the struggle,-the relief,-
Then sleep we side by side.
BRIGHT flag at yonder tapering mast,
Fling out your field of azure blue;
Let star and stripe be westward cast,
And point as Freedom's eagle flew !
Strain home! O lithe and quivering spars!
Point home, my country's flag of stars!
The wind blows fair, the vessel feels
The pressure of the rising breeze,
And, swiftest of a thousand keels,
She leaps to the careering seas!
O, fair, fair cloud of snowy sail,
In whose white breast I seem to lië,
How oft, when blew this eastern gale,
I've seen your semblance in the sky,
And long'd, with breaking heart, to flee
On such white pinions o'er the sea!
Adieu, O lands of fame and eld!
I turn to watch our foamy track,
And thoughts with which I first beheld
Yon clouded line, come hurrying back;
My lips are dry with vague desire,
My cheek once more is hot with joy;
My pulse, my brain, my soul on fire!
O, what has changed that traveler-boy!
As leaves the ship this dying foam,
His visions fade behind his weary heart speeds home!
Adieu, O soft and southern shore,
Where dwelt the stars long miss'd in heaven; Those forms of beauty, seen no more,
Yet once to Art's rapt vision given ! O, still the enamour'd sun delays,
And pries through fount and crumbling fane, To win to his adoring gaze
Those children of the sky again!
Irradiate beauty, such as never
That light on other earth hath shone, Hath made this land her home for ever; And, could I live for this alone,
Were not my birthright brighter far
Than such voluptuous slave's can be;
Held not the west one glorious star,
New-born and blazing for the free,
Soar'd not to heaven our eagle yet,
Rome, with her helot sons, should teach me to forget!
Adieu, O, fatherland! I see
Your white cliffs on the horizon's rim,
And, though to freer skies I flee,
My heart swells, and my eyes are dim!
As knows the dove the task you give her,
When loosed upon a foreign shore;
As spreads the rain-drop in the river.
In which it may have flow'd before-
To England, over vale and mountain,
My fancy flew from climes more fair, My blood, that knew its parent fountain, Ran warm and fast in England's air.
My mother! in thy prayer to-night
There come new words and warmer tears!
On long, long darkness breaks the light,
Comes home the loved, the lost for years!
Sleep safe, O wave-worn mariner,
Fear not, to-night, or storm or sea!
The ear of heaven bends low to her!
He comes to shore who sails with me!
The wind-toss'd spider needs no token
How stands the tree when lightnings blaze:
And, by a thread from heaven unbroken,
I know my mother lives and prays!
Dear mother! when our lips can speak,
When first our tears will let us see,
When I can gaze upon thy cheek,
And thou, with thy dear eyes, on me—
'T will be a pastime little sad
To trace what weight Time's heavy fingers Upon each other's forms have had;
For all may flee, so feeling lingers!
But there's a change, beloved mother,
To stir far deeper thoughts of thine;
I come but with me comes another,
To share the heart once only mine!
Thou, on whose thoughts, when sad and lonely,
One star arose in memory's heaven;
Thou, who hast watch'd one treasure only,
Water'd one flower with tears at even:
Room in thy heart! The hearth she left
Is darken'd to make light to ours!
There are bright flowers of care bereft,
And hearts that languish more than flowers;
She was their light, their very air
Room, mother, in thy heart! place for her in thy prayer!
|