h on earth!--
YOUTH.
And canst thou smile when all are gone
Who shared thy youthful prime;
Content to wait and watch alone,
To grapple still with time?
How comes it that thou thus below
Hast rest above the sod,
Which brings to memory scenes of woe?
AGE.
It is the will of God!
MARY HUME.
A BALLAD.
"He will come to night," young Mary said,
And checked the rising sigh;
And gazed on the stars that o'er her head
Shone out in the deep blue sky.
"Heaven speed his voyage!--though absent long,
The painful vigil's o'er--
The skies are clear--the breeze is strong--
We meet to part no more!"
While yet she spoke a sudden chill
O'er her ardent spirit crept;
A sad presentiment of ill--
She turned away and wept.
Far off the sigh of ocean stole--
The sweeping of the sounding surge--
In plaintive murmurs o'er her soul,
Like wailing of a funeral dirge.
And in the wind there is a tone
Which whispers to her sinking heart--
"Mary we meet in death alone;
In realms of bliss no more to part."
The moon has sunk in her ocean cave,
Fled are the shades of night,
And morning bursts on the purple wave
In floods of golden-light.
The sudden stroke of the village bell
Checks the fisher's blithesome song;
He pauses to hear how rock and fell
Its sullen tones prolong.
"Some soul to its last account has sped:
Dost thou hear that solemn sound?"
"'Tis Mary Hume!"--his comrade said--
"Last night her love was drowned!"
THE SPIRIT OF MOTION.
Spirit of eternal motion!
Ruler of the stormy ocean,
Lifter of the restless waves,
Rider of the blast that raves
Hoarsely through yon lofty oak,
Bending to thy mystic stroke;
Man from age to age has sought
Thy secret--but it baffles thought!
Agent of the Deity!
Offspring of eternity,
Guider of the steeds of time
Along the starry track sublime,
Founder of each wondrous art,
Mover of the human heart;
Since the world's primeval day
All nature has confessed thy sway.
They who strive thy laws to find
Might as well arrest the wind,
Measure out the drops of rain,
Count the sands which bound the main,
Quell the earthquake's sullen shock,
Chain the eagle to the rock,
Bid the sun his heat assuage,
The mountain torrent cease to rage.
Spirit, active and divine--
Life and all its powers are thine!
Guided by the first great cause,
Sun and moon obey thy laws,
Which to man must ever be
A wonder and a mystery,
Kn
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