Obrázky na stránke
PDF
ePub

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
When Time shall be no more!

"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 :
But the star which all others eclipsed with its light—

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,-
Was the star of VICTORIA, resplendently bright!
Oh! that was the gem and the star of the night!
Illuming, attracting the nations afar,

The beacon of earth, both in peace and in war;
A star which for aye in its fulness shall shine,
For the star of the righteous shall never decline!

It was that which so cheered, so elated the mind,
That all hearts in the bonds of affection combined,
And lifting their eyes and their hands up on high,
To the GOD of their fathers enthroned in the sky,
With His love and His mercy so sweet and serene,
Implored Him to bless and to succour the Queen;
On the bosom of earth, on the waves of the sea,

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,
Interwove by the hand of some angel above;

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:
Millions have toiled His wonders to explore,

But who can gauge a sea without a shore?

Is there an atom or a grain of sand

The most exalted mind can understand?
Where is the man that ever yet explained
All that's within a drop of dew contained?
Or how the forest boughs their leaves expand,
Tinged with a touch of the Eternal's hand?
What know we of the High and Mighty One,
Who only speaks, and what He wills is done?

« PredošláPokračovať »