And who can tell what raptures high
Now bless your immortality!
My boyish days are nearly gone;
My breast is not unsullied now;
And worldly cares and woes will soon
Cut their deep furrows on my brow,—
And life will take a darker hue
From ills my brother never knew;
And I have made me bosom friends,
And loved, and linked my heart with others;
But who with mine his spirit blends,
As mine was blended with my brother's?
When years of rapture glided by,
The spring of life's unclouded weather,
Our souls were knit, and thou and I,
My brother, grew in love together.
The chain is broke that bound us then;
When shall I find its like again!
POEMS Contain great promise of future excellency; they display all the warmth of a generous and noble youthful mind, which the world has not yet warped into selfishness, nor chilled by the lessons of self-interest.
MY SISTER'S GRAVE.
THE noon-day sun is riding high,
Along the calm and cloudless sky;
The mantle of its gorgeous glow
Floats sleepily o'er all below;
And heaven and earth are brightly gay
Beneath the universal ray;
But not a wandering sunbeam falls
Within these high and hallowed walls,
Which echo back my lonely tread,
Like solemn answers from the dead;
-The murmurs steal along the nave,
And die above my sister's grave!
'Tis evening-still I linger here;
Yet sorrow speaks not in a tear!
The silence is so sadly deep,
The place so pure, I dare not weep:
I sit as in a shapeless dream,
Where all is changing, save its theme;
And if a sigh will sometimes heave
A heart that loves, but may not grieve,
It seems as though the spirits round
Sent back reproachfully the sound;
And then I start, and think I have
A chiding from my sister's grave!
The feeling is a nameless one
With which I sit upon thy stone,
And read the tale I dare not breathe,
Of blighted hope that sleeps beneath.
A simple tablet bears above
Brief record of a father's love,
And hints, in language yet more brief,
The story of a father's grief;
Around the night-breeze sadly plays,
With 'scutcheons of the elder days;
And faded banners dimly wave
On high, right o'er my sister's grave!
Lost spirit!-thine was not a breast
To struggle vainly after rest;
Thou wert not made to bear the strife,
Nor labour through the storms of life;
Thy heart was in too warm a mould
To mingle with the dull and cold;
And every thought that wronged thy truth,
Fell like a blight upon thy youth;
Thou shouldst have been, for thy distress,
Less pure, and, oh! more passionless;
For sorrow's wasting mildew gave
Thy beauty to my sister's grave.
But all thy griefs, my girl, are o'er,—
Thy fair blue eyes shall weep no more;
'Tis sweet to know thy fragile form
Lies safe from every future storm.
Oft as I haunt the dreary gloom,
That gathers round thy peaceful tomb,
I love to see the lightning stream
Along thy stone with fitful gleam;
To fancy in each flash are given
Thy spirit's visitings from heaven;
And smile to hear the tempest rave
Above my sister's quiet grave!
MORN on the waters! and purple and bright
Bursts on the billows the flashing of light;
O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun,
See the tall vessel goes gallantly on;
Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail,
And her pennon streams onward, like hope, in the gale;
The winds come around her, and murmur and song,
And the surges rejoice as they bear her along.
See! she looks up to the golden-edge clouds,
And the sailor sings gaily aloft in her shrouds:
Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray,
Over the waters, away and away!
Bright as the visions of youth ere they part,
Passing away, like a dream of the heart!
Who, as the baeutiful pageant sweeps by,
Music around her, and sunshine on high,
Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow,
Oh! there be hearts that are breaking below.
Night on the waves! and the moon is on high,
Hung like a gem on the brow of the sky,
Treading its depths in the power of her might,
And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light;
Look to the waters! asleep on their breast
Seems not the ship like an island of rest?
Bright and alone on the shadowy main,
Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain!
Who, as she smiles in the silvery light,
Spreading her wings on the bosom of night,
Alone on the deep, as the moon in the sky,
A phantom of beauty,-could deem, with a sigh,
That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin,
And souls that are smitten lie bursting within!
Who, as he watches her silently gliding,
Remembers that wave after wave is dividing
Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever,
Hearts that are parted and broken for ever?
Or dreams that he watches, afloat on the wave,
The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's grave?
'Tis thus with our life: while it passes along,
Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song,
Gaily we glide in the gaze of the world,
With streamers afloat, and with canvass unfurled;
All gladness and glory, to wandering eyes,
Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs:
Fading and false is the aspect it wears,
As the smiles we put on, just to cover our tears;
And the withering thoughts that the world cannot know,
Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below;
Whilst the vessel drives on to that desolate shore,
Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er.
ROBERT MONTGOMERY is one of the most distinguished religious poets of the present day. His earlier publications obtained greater popularity than those of more recent date; the change, however, must not be attributed to any decline of the author's powers, but simply to the reaction produced by the extravagant praise of injudicious friends. His works display command of lauguage rather than depth of thought, more amiable feeling than grasp of intellect. There are few writers who have laboured more strenuously or more successfully to present the great truths of religion adorned with the graces of poetry to the minds of their readers.
OMNIPRESENCE OF THE DEITY.
LORD of all being! where can Fancy fly,
To what far realms, unmeasured by thine eye?
Where can we hide beneath Thy blazing sun,
Where dwell'st Thou not-the boundless, viewless, One?
Shall Guilt couch down within the cavern's gloom,
And quivering, groaning, meditate her doom?
Or scale the mountain-tops, where eaglets rest,
And the chill snow-flakes thicken on their breast?-
Within the caverned gloom, Thine eye can see!
The sky-clad mountains lift their heads to Thee!
Thy Spirit rides upon the black-waved seas,
Roars in the blast, and whispers in the breeze-
In storm and calm, in Earth and Heaven Thou art,
Trace but Thy works-they bring Thee to the heart!
The splendour of Thy presence who can see?
Man cannot live, great God, and look on Thee!
Eternal lightnings wrap Thy rainbowed throne,
And seraphs shudder at Thy dreadful tone!
On Sinai's mountain, when Thy glory came
In rolls of thunder, and in clouds of flame,
And, while volcanic smoke Thy throne o'ercast,
And the mount shrunk beneath the trumpet blast,
How did Thy presence smite all Israel's eye,-
Flashed backward by the gleams of Deity!
There is a voiceless eloquence on earth,
Telling of Him who gave her wonders birth;
And long may I remain the adoring child
Of Nature's majesty,-sublime or wild!
Hill, flood, and forest- mountain, rock, and sea,
All take their terrors and their charms from Thee,-
From Thee, whose hidden and supreme control
Moves through the world, a universal soul!
But who could trace Thine unrestricted course,
Though Fancy followed with immortal force?
There's not a flower that's fondled by the breeze,
There's not a fruit that beautifies the trees,
There's not a particle in sea or air,
But Nature owns Thy plastic influence there!—
With partial gaze still be it mine to see
How all is filled and vivified by Thee;
Upon Thy mirror-earth's majestic view,
To paint Thy presence, and to feel it too!
SPIRIT of Light and Life! when battle rears
Her fiery brow and her terrific spears;
When red-mouthed cannon to the clouds uproar,
And gasping thousands make their bed in gore,
While on the billowy bosom of the air
Roll the dread notes of anguish and despair!
Unseen, Thou walkest upon the smoking plain,
And hearest each groan that gurgles from the slain!
List ! war-peals thunder on the battle-field ;
And many a hand grasps firm the glittering shield,
As on, with helm and plume, the warriors come,
And the glad hills repeat their stormy drum!
And now are seen the youthful and the gray,
With bosoms firing to partake the fray;
The first with hearts that consecrate the deed,
All eager rush to vanquish or to bleed!
Like young waves racing in the morning sun,
That rear and leap with reckless fury on!-
But mark yon war-worn man, who looks on high,
With thought and valour mirrored in his eye!
Not all the gory revels of the day
Can fright the vision of his home away!
The home of love, and its associate smiles,
His wife's endearment and his baby's wiles:-
Fights he less brave through recollected bliss,
With step retreating, or with sword remiss?
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