THE ASPHODEL. (Day-Lily.)
A FAIR exotic-bright as fair!
Child of the florist's partial care
In eastern clime;
A bird of paradise! whose plume
Has felt alas! the fowler's doom,
In youth's gay prime.
A stranger in a far-off land !
An exile on a lonely strand!
A stricken deer!
A heart, whose pulses, quick and warm,
Are chilled beneath the wintry storm!
A ruin sere!
A floweret fading in the sun!
A treasure lost as soon as won !
A summer cloud!
A rose-bud withering in its bloom!
An offering garnished for the tomb,
Like beauty's shroud!
The murmuring of the plaintive dove!
The notes of passion and of love!
A smouldering fire!
The whispering of the wind at sea!
The echo of soft melody!
A trembling lyre!
All these, a mimic train, steal on
As Memory gathers thoughts of one
Whose inmost soul;
Subject to Feeling's master-hand,
Confest amid her recreant band,
Their wild control.
But let me not, as thus I trace
The fading charm, the passing grace,
The smile the tear!
Oh! let me not the soul forget,
Which lives in life's fresh pages yet
With impress clear.
Say, didst thou know that converse high,
That pure and perfect harmony,
The saint's blest fellowship on earth,
The dawn of a celestial birth,
The light of heaven ?
Then has thy soaring spirit found
Its fitting place, its proper bound,
Then hast thou won the Christian's prize,
The perfect bliss of Paradise,
To make thee blest.
Then is thy fluttering pinion stayed;
Then is thy fond ambition laid
Turned like the dove that found its ark
Or mariner who seeks his bark,
Thy home to greet.
Here didst thou turn ?-then all is well!
Thy soul hath left its citadel,
Its house of clay :
And may we greet thee in a clime
Above the elements of time
In perfect day.
"My daughter, shall I not seek rest for thee, that it may be well with thee?"-RUTH iii. 1.
I LOOK upon a mind of large desire,
A spirit quickened by celestial fire ;
A soul ascending from the things of sense,
To mingle with each bright intelligence ;
A spark of heaven's own kindling, sent to raise
And fan the fire of zeal to after days.
He deals in argument of high degree,
And muses on divine philosophy.
An alchemist in morals, and behold!
His crucible emits ethereal gold;
He lifts his eye, and measures as he may
The systems that adorn the passing day;
Inhabiting a world that men call real,
Yet furnished with the charms of the ideal,
He garnishes the sterner truth of things
With Iris' hues and plumes of Fancy's wings;
He clothes the sentimental with a grace
That poet's hand on Nature's form might trace,
He loves investigation deep and high,
He ploughs the earth, he soars into the sky;
He proves the broken cistern-and with care
He stays the vagrant waters gathering there.
Habit his pen encounters,-when her power
Has chained us in a soft beguiling hour;
His hand is raised in combat-and 'twere well
If thus her host should fly our citadel;
He skirmishes with Folly's airy band,
And faltering purpose feels the enchanter's wand.
The world of thought he enters, and his skill
Would exorcise the spirits at his will ;—
Vain thoughts depart ! he bids your myriads fly-
Before your locust tribes our spirits die.
He calls up man, to wisdom, and would bring
Treasures of sweetness from her hallowed spring;
He marshals our existence by a law,
Unused to swerve, unblemished by a flaw ;
He nerves the mind to action, and applies
Strength to our weak and wavering faculties;
He sets on Time high value,-hours and days
Were given to speak the Great Creator's praise,
Then hear his high monition! whilst his voice
Cries from the tomb, "Make Heaven's high meed your
choice."
Still, themes like his instruct us,—and his name
Of potent spell shall Memory's tribute claim;
Still, thoughts like his have language—and his word
Is yet within the heart's deep chambers heard,
And now in God's own presence he appears ;—
For Time has flown with all his garnered years,
He stands in God's own presence to receive
That gift of grace by which the ransomed live ;-
To glory in the cross the Saviour bore,
To triumph, landed on Immanuel's shore ;-
Where with the saints forever, clothed in light,
He changes earth for heaven, and faith for sight!
"Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him ; for we shall see him as he is."-1 JOHN iii. 2.
THE BARD OF PALESTINE.
SOFT, musical and clear, I mark a strain
That steals along :
Methinks, it breathes from India's palmy plain-
Her groves among.
It sings of Greenland's mountains cold and sere,
Those ice-bergs rude,
Where nature spreads through deserts vast and drear,
Her solitude.
It sings of spicy breezes-as they sweep
O'er Ceylon's isle ;
Where garden-groves of beauty, softly sleep
In Nature's smile.
It sings of Ganges' broad, majestic tide—
Her glassy stream :—
Blind votaries of her charms! your souls abide
In Lethe's dream.
When will ye rouse from slumber, and behold
That healing wave
Which flows through Zion,—with her streets of gold,
Where all may lave?
|