Oh! I am wrapt aloft. My spirit soars Beyond the skies, and leaves the stars behind. Lo! angels lead me to the happy shores, And floating paans fill the buoyant wind. Farewell ! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed, Far from its clayey cell it springs, * VII. AH! who can say, however fair his view, Through what sad scenes his path may lie! Ah! who can give to others' woes his sigh, Secure his own will never need it too! Let thoughtless youth its seeming joys pursue, Soon will they learn to scan, with thoughtful eye, The illusive past and dark futurity; Soon will they know * VIII. AND must thou go, and must we part! Yes, Fate decrees, and I submit; Oh, Fanny, dost thou share in it! Thy sex is fickle,—when away, Some happier youth may win thy IX. SONNET. WHEN I sit musing on the checquer'd past, (A term much darken'd with untimely woes,) My thoughts revert to her, for whom still flows to her she robb’d me of my rest, Though wrong'd, I love her—yet in anger love, For she was most unworthy. Then I prove * X. WHEN high romance o’er every wood and stream, Dark lustre shed, my infant mind to fire; Spell-struck, and fill'd with many a wondering dream, First in the groves I woke the pensive lyre. All there was mystery then, the gust that woke The midnight echo was a spirit's dirge; And unseen fairies would the moon invoke, To their light morrice by the restless surge. Too much And dark forebodings now my bosom fill. XI. HUSH'D is the lyre-the hand that swept The low and pensive wires, Yes—it is still--the lyre is still; The spirit which its slumbers broke, Hath pass’d away,—and that weak hand that woke, Its forest melodies hath lost its skill. Yet I would press you to my lips once more, Ye wild, yet withering flowers of poësy; Mix'd with decaying odours; for to me As in the wood-paths of my native- ONCE more, and yet once more, I give unto my harp a dark-woven lay; I heard the flood of ages pass away. In thine eternal cell, I saw thee rise, I saw the scroll complete, The universe gave way. |