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 pæans fill the buoyant wind.
Farewell! base earth, farewell! my soul is freed,
Far from its clayey cell it springs,—
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;
AND must thou go, and must we part!
Yes, Fate decrees, and I submit;
The pang that rends in twain my heart,
Oh, Fanny, dost thou share in it!
Thy sex is fickle,—when away,
Some happier youth may win thy
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
The tear, though half disown'd;-and binding fast
Pride's stubborn cheat to my too yielding heart,
I say to her she robb'd me of my rest,
When that was all my wealth.-'Tis true my breast
Received from her this wearying lingering smart;
Yet ah! I cannot bid her form depart;
Though wrong'd, I love her—yet in anger love, For she was most unworthy.-Then I prove Vindictive joy; and on my stern front gleams, Thron'd in dark clouds, inflexible
The native pride of my much injur❜d heart.
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.
Now to my sober'd thought with life's false smiles,
Too much * *
The vagrant Fancy spreads no more her wiles,
And dark forebodings now my bosom fill.
HUSH'D is the lyre-the hand that swept
The low and pensive wires,
Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.
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;
Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour,
Mix'd with decaying odours; for to me
Ye have beguil'd the hours of infancy,
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 waters roar,
I heard the flood of ages pass away.
O thou, stern spirit, who dost dwell
In thine eternal cell,
Noting, grey chronicler! the silent years;
I saw thee rise,-I saw the scroll complete,
Thou spakest, and at thy feet,
The universe gave way.
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