REGINALD HEBER. 1783-1826. LINES ADDRESSED TO MRS. HEBER. If thou wert by my side, my love, If thou, my love, wert by my side, How gaily would our pinnace glide I miss thee at the dawning gray, I miss thee when by Gunga's stream But most beneath the lamp's pale beam, I spread my books, my pencil try, The lingering noon to cheer, 1824. But miss thy kind approving eye, But when of morn or eve the star I feel, though thou art distant far, Then on! then on! where duty leads, That course, nor Delhi's kingly gates For sweet the bliss us both awaits Thy towers, Bombay, gleam bright, they say, But ne'er were hearts so light and gay As then shall meet in thee! WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT. 1794. 1825. O FAIREST of the rural maids! Thy sports, thy wanderings, when a child, The twilight of the trees and rocks Thine eyes are springs, in whose serene The forest depths, by foot unpressed, THE FUTURE LIFE. How shall I know thee in the sphere which keeps For I shall feel the sting of ceaseless pain In thy serenest eyes the tender thought. Will not thy own meek heart demand me there? And wilt thou never utter it in heaven? In meadows fanned by heaven's life-breathing wind, Wilt thou forget the love that joined us here? The love that lived through all the stormy past, And deeper grew, and tenderer to the last, Shall it expire with life, and be no more? A happier lot than mine, and larger light, Await thee there; for thou hast bowed thy will In cheerful homage to the rule of right, And lovest all, and renderest good for ill. For me, the sordid cares in which I dwell, Shrink and consume my heart, as heat the scroll; And wrath has left its scar-that fire of hell Has left its frightful scar upon my soul. 1837. Yet though thou wear'st the glory of the sky, Lovelier in heaven's sweet climate, yet the same? Shalt thou not teach me, in that calmer home, Thy fit companion in that land of bliss? |