Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small][merged small]

A GOOD that never satisfies the mind,

A beauty fading like the April flowers,

A sweet with floods of gall that runs combined,
A pleasure passing ere in thought made ours,
An honor that more fickle is than wind,
A glory at opinion's frown that lowers,

A treasury which bankrupt time devours,

A knowledge than grave ignorance more blind,
A vain delight our equals to command,
A style of greatness, in effect a dream,
A swelling thought of holding sea and land,
A servile lot, decked with a pompous name,
Are the strange ends we toil for here below,
Till wisest death make us our errors know.

WILLIAM DRUMMOND.

THE DIRGE.

WHAT is the existence of man's life
But open war, or slumbered strife?
Where sickness to his sense presents
The combat of the elements;
And never feels a perfect peace,
Till death's cold hand signs his release.

It is a storm where the hot blood
Outvies in rage the boiling flood;

And each loud passion of the mind
Is like a furious gust of wind,

Which bears his bark with many a wave,
Till he casts anchor in the grave.

It is a flower which buds and grows
And withers as the leaves disclose;
Whose spring and fall faint seasons keep,
Like fits of waking before sleep;
Then shrinks into that fatal mould
Where its first being was enrolled.

It is a dream whose seeming truth
Is moralized in age and youth;
Where all the comforts he can share
As wandering as his fancies are;
Till in the mist of dark decay
The dreamer vanish quite away.

It is a dial which points out
The sunset as it moves about ;
And shadows out in lines of night
The subtle stages of time's flight,
Till all-obscuring earth hath laid
The body in perpetual shade.

It is a weary interlude,

Which doth short joys, long woes include;
The world the stage, the prologue tears,
The acts vain hopes and varied fears;
The scene shuts up with loss of breath,
And leaves no epilogue but death.

HENRY KING.

THE END OF THE PLAY.

THE play is done, - the curtain drops,
Slow falling to the prompter's bell;
A moment yet the actor stops,

And looks around, to say farewell.
It is an irksome word and task;

And, when he's laughed and said his say, He shows, as he removes the mask,

A face that's anything but gay.

One word, ere yet the evening ends,

Let's close it with a parting rhyme ;
And pledge a hand to all young friends,
As fits the merry Christmas time;
On life's wide scene you, too, have parts
That fate erelong shall bid you play;
Good night! - with honest, gentle hearts
A kindly greeting go alway!

Good night! I'd say the griefs, the joys,
Just hinted in this mimic page,
The triumphs and defeats of boys,
Are but repeated in our age;

[blocks in formation]

POEMS OF RELIGION

The angel wrote, and vanished. The west
with a great wakening light.

I came

again,

night

and shewd the names whom love of god had beard, And Co: Ben Athem's name lid all the rest

Here

[ocr errors]

Leigh Bunt

This blesse Thanksgiving Night,

The raise to the am gratiful Civico;
For what than doest, Lord, is right

And this believing we rejoice.
D. Hallund

POEMS OF RELIGION.

MY GOD, I LOVE THEE.

My God, I love thee! not because

I hope for heaven thereby ;
Nor because those who love thee not
Must burn eternally.

Thou, O my Jesus, thou didst me
Upon the cross embrace !

For me didst bear the nails and spear,
And manifold disgrace.

And griefs and torments numberless, And sweat of agony,

Yea, death itself, — and all for one
That was thine enemy.

Then why, O blessed Jesus Christ,

Should I not love thee well?
Not for the hope of winning heaven,

Nor of escaping hell!

Not with the hope of gaining aught,
Not seeking a reward;

But as thyself hast loved me,
O everlasting Lord!

E'en so I love thee, and will love,

And in thy praise will sing, Solely because thou art my God, And my eternal King.

ST. FRANCIS XAVIER (Latin). Translation of EDWARD CASWELL.

EMPLOYMENT.

IF as a flowre doth spread and die, Thou wouldst extend me to some good, Before I were by frost's extremitie

Nipt in the bud,

The sweetnesse and the praise were thine; But the extension and the room

Which in thy garland I should fill were mine At thy great doom.

For as thou dost impart thy grace,
The greater shall our glorie be.

The measure of our joyes is in this place,
The stuffe with thee.

Let me not languish, then, and spend
A life as barren to thy praise

As is the dust, to which that life doth tend,
But with delaies.

All things are busie; only I
Neither bring hony with the bees,

Nor flowres to make that, nor the husbandrie
To water these.

I am no link of thy great chain, But all my companie is a weed. Lord, place me in thy consort; give one strain To my poore reed.

GEORGE HERBERT.

THE NEW JERUSALEM.

O MOTHER dear, Jerusalem,

When shall I come to thee?
When shall my sorrows have an end, -
Thy joys when shall I see?

O happy harbor of God's saints!
O sweet and pleasant soil!
In thee no sorrow can be found,
Nor grief, nor care, nor toil.
No dimly cloud o'ershadows thee,
Nor gloom, nor darksome night;
But every soul shines as the sun,
For God himself gives light.

Thy walls are made of precious stone,
Thy bulwarks diamond-square,
Thy gates are all of orient pearl,
O God! if I were there!

O my sweet home, Jerusalem!
Thy joys when shall I see?—
The King sitting upon thy throne,
And thy felicity?

[ocr errors]
« AnteriorContinuar »