SONNET-MUTATION. THEY talk of short-lived pleasure-be it so— The fiercest agonies have shortest reign; The welcome morning with its rays of peace. Makes the strong secret pangs of shame to cease : Are fruits of innocence and blessedness: Thus joy, o'erborne and bound, doth still release His young limbs from the chains that round him press. Weep not that the world changes--did it keep A stable changeless state, 'twere cause indeed to weep. HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. THE sad and solemn night Has yet her multitude of cheerful fires; Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go. Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they : Unseen, they follow in his flaming way: Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, And thou dost see them rise, Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. Alone, in thy cold skies, Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, Nor join'st the dances of that glittering train, There, at morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. 237 And eve, that round the earth Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls Alike, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness and of light are done; High towards the star-lit sky Towns blaze-the smoke of battle blots the sun- On thy unaltering blaze The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost, Fixes his steady gaze, And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right. And, therefore, bards of old, Did in thy beams behold A beauteous type of that unchanging good, The voyager of time should shape his heedful way. THE TWENTY-SECOND OF DECEMBER. WILD was the day; the wintry sea Moaned sadly on New-England's strand, When first, the thoughtful and the free, They little thought how pure a light, With years, should gather round that day; How love should keep their memories bright, How wide a realm their sons should sway. Green are their bays; but greener still Shall round their spreading fame be wreathed, And regions, now untrod, shall thrill With reverence, when their names are breathed. Till where the sun, with softer fires, The children of the pilgrim sires This hallowed day like us shall keep. ODE FOR AN AGRICULTURAL CELEBRATION. FAR back in the ages, The plough with wreaths was crowned; Entwined the chaplet round; By which the world was nourished, The proud throne shall crumble, The tribes of earth shall humble The pride of those who reign; Shall fade, decay, and perish. |