Hath she not then, for pains and fears,
The day of woe, the watchful night,
For all her sorrow, all her tears,
An overpayment of delight?
The Author of this poem is not known to us, but it is well entitled
WHETHER We smile or weep,
Time wings his flight;
Days, hours, they never creep;
Life speeds like light.
Whether we laugh or groan,
Seasons change fast;
Nothing hath ever flown
Swift as the past.
Whether we chafe or chide,
On is Time's pace;
Never his noiseless steps
Doth he retrace.
Speeding, still speeding on,
How none can tell,
Soon he will bear us
To Heaven or Hell.
Dare not then waste thy days,
Reckless and proud;
Lest, while ye dream not,
Death spread thy shroud.
By the late MARGARET S. FULLER (Countess d'Ossoli), wrecked on the coast of America, of which country she was a native, when returning from Italy with her husband and child.
EACH Orpheus must to the depths descend,
For only thus the Poet can be wise;
Must make the sad Persephone his friend,
And buried love to second life arise;
Again his love must lose through too much love,
Must lose his life by living life too true;
For what he sought below is pass'd above,
Already done is all that he must do;
Must tune all being with his single lyre,
Must melt all rocks free from their primal pain;
Must search all Nature, with his one soul's fire;
Must bind anew all forms in heavenly chain.
If he already sees what he must do,
Well may he shade his eyes from the far-shining-view.
Another of BRYANT's poems, breathing the very spirit of worship in the truest language of poetry.
THE sea is mighty, but a mightier sways
His restless billows. Thou whose hands have scoop'd
His boundless gulfs and built his shore, Thy breath,
That moved in the beginning o'er his face,
Moves o'er it evermore. The obedient waves
To its strong motion roll and rise and fall.
Still from that realm of rain thy cloud goes up,
As at the first, to water the great earth
And keep her valleys green. A hundred realms
Watch its broad shadow warping on the wind,
And in the dropping shower with gladness hear
Thy promise of the harvest. I look forth
Over the boundless blue, where, joyously,
The bright crests of innumerable waves
Glance to the sun at once, as when the hands
Of a great multitude are upward flung
In acclamation. I behold the ships
Gliding from cape to cape, from isle to isle,
Or stemming toward far lands, or hastening home
From the old world. It is Thy friendly breeze
That bears them with the riches of the land
And treasures of dear lives, till, in the port,
The shouting seaman climbs and furls the sail.
But who shall bide Thy tempest, who shall face
The blast that wakes the fury of the sea?
Oh, God! Thy justice makes the world turn pale,
When on the armed fleet that royally
Bears down the surges, carrying war to smite
Some city, or invade some thoughtless realm,
Descends the fierce tornado. The vast hulks
Are whirl'd like chaff upon the waves; the sails
Fly, rent like webs of gossamer; the masts
Are snapp'd asunder; downward from the decks,
Downward, are slung into the fathomless gulf
Their cruel engines; and their hosts, array'd
In trappings of the battle-field, are whelm'd
By whirlpools, or dash'd dead upon the rocks.
Then stand the nations still with awe and pause
A moment from the bloody work of war.
These restless surges eat away the shores
Of earth's old continents: the fertile plain
Welters in shallows, headlands crumble down,
And the tide drifts the sea-sand in the streets
Of the drown'd city. Thou, meanwhile, afar
In the green chambers of the middle sea,
Where broadest spread the waters and the line
Sinks deepest, while no eye beholds thy work,
Creator! thou dost teach the coral worm
To lay his mighty reefs. From age to age
He builds beneath the waters, till, at last,
His bulwarks overtop the brine, and check
The long wave rolling from the southern pole
To break upon Japan. Thou bidd'st the fires,
That smoulder under ocean, heave on high
The new-made mountains and uplift their peaks,
A place of refuge for the storm-driven bird.
The birds and wafting billows plant the rifts
With herb and tree; sweet fountains gush; sweet airs
Ripple the living lakes, that, fringed with flowers,
Are gather'd in the hollows. Thou dost look
On thy creation, and pronounce it good.
Its valleys, glorious with their summer green,
Praise thee in silent beauty, and its woods,
Swept by the murmuring winds of ocean, join
The murmuring shores in a perpetual hymn.
A passage from BYRON's Mazeppa.
SHE had the Asiatic eye,
Such as our Turkish neighbourhood
Hath mingled with our Polish blood,
Dark as above us is the sky;
But through it stole a tender light,
Like the first moonrise at midnight;
Large, dark, and swimming in the stream,
Which seem'd to melt to its own beam;
All love, half languor, and half fire,
Like saints that at the stake expire,
And lift their raptured looks on high,
As though it were a joy to die.
A brow like a midsummer lake,
Transparent with the sun therein,
When waves no murmur dare to make,
And heaven beholds her face within.
A cheek and lip-but why proceed?
I loved her then-I love her still;
And such as I am love indeed
In fierce extremes—in good and ill.
But still we love even in our rage,
And haunted to our very age
With the vain shadow of the past,
As is Mazeppa to the last.
Here is another fine lyric by BARRY CORNWALL. It will please every reader, young or old, polished or rude; for, being a natural strain, it is intelligible to all, and being intelligible, must be enjoyed by all.
In the hollow tree, in the old grey tower,
The spectral owl doth dwell;
Dull, hated, despised in the sunshine hour,
But at dusk, he's abroad and well!
Not a bird of the forest e'er mates with him ;
All mock him outright, by day;
But at night, when the woods grow still and dim,
The boldest will shrink away!
O, when the night falls, and roosts the fowl,
Then, then is the reign of the horned owl!
And the owl hath a bride who is fond and bold,
And loveth the wood's deep gloom;
And with eyes like the shine of the moonstone cold
She awaiteth her ghastly groom!
Not a feather she moves, not a carol she sings,
As she waits in her tree so still;
But when her heart heareth his flapping wings,
She hoots out her welcome shrill!
O, when the moon shines, and the dogs do howl,
Then, then is the cry of the horned owl!
Mourn not for the owl, nor his gloomy plight!
The owl hath his share of good :
If a prisoner he be in the broad day-light,
He is lord in the dark green wood!
Nor lonely the bird, nor his ghastly mate;
They are each unto each a pride-
Thrice fonder perhaps, since a strange dark fate
Hath rent them from all beside!
So, when the night falls and dogs do howl,
Sing, Ho! for the reign of the horned owl!
We know not alway
Who are kings by day,
But the king of the night is the bold brown owl.
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