But soon, alas! his strength began to fail Diseases will in time of dearth prevail; Yet, ere he parted with his flickering breath, Or lost his once melodious voice in death, He sang the sweetest, the most touching strain I ever heard, or e'er shall hear again :— "Ah! what can gold or silver do, Though heaped up mountains high? Can they repel the tide of woe, Or bliss eternal buy? "How few who care but to increase The miser's glittering ore, Shall reach the glorious port of Peace "How few who can the poor man spurn Indignantly away, Know what it is to sit and learn The harp of Love to play! "But there's a brighter world than this, A world from avarice free, A mansion of eternal bliss, Reserved in Heaven for me. "There never more the burning tear Of sorrow shall be shed; No father's heart shall break, to hear His children cry for bread." 【ines, WRITTEN ON THE OCCASION OF THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES, AFTER WITNESSING THE ILLUMINATIONS AT BRADFORD. JOON as the glorious sun had wheeled away, And closed in golden clouds the eye of day, Thousands of stars that Newton never knew, Sprang from the earth, and burst upon the view : The star of the evening, the gem of the night— The star of all others to freedom most dear The star of all others, unsullied and clear,- The beacon of earth, both in peace and in war; It was that which so cheered, so elated the mind, Her rock of defence, and her pilot to be; To guard and to watch with a fatherly eye, From His throne in the fathomless depths of the sky, Her children, to England, to Britain so dear; To adorn them with robes of angelical wear With the garments of virtue, of truth, and of love, To encircle the home of Prince Albert her son, And the bower of the beautiful bride he has won, With a halo of beauty, of bliss, and of light, Which shall shine when the stars shall be shrouded in night. Tixes, ON BEING REQUESTED TO WRITE A POEM ON THE DEITY. HERE shall my theme begin? where shall it end? Tell me, my honoured, much-respected friend: But who can gauge a sea without a shore? Is there an atom or a grain of sand The most exalted mind can understand? |