E'en now, as I watched, through the azure clear,

That star as it blazed along,

An echo fell on my spirit's ear,

Like the notes which the angels love to hear,

And the whirling spheres prolong.

'Twas Venus who sang to her sister sphere, And a poet heard the song.

I.

"Alone in my splendour,
The queen of a train

Of thousands, that render

Their homage in vain;
Unmatched through the mazes
Of beauty I fly,

And waken the praises
Of earth and the sky.

II.

66

Through the halls of the even,

When gaily I roam,

The children of heaven

Look out from their home;

When eastward returning,

I herald the day,

The sons of the morning
Attend my bright way.

III.

"Earth heaves up her mountains
For a glance of mine eye,
And smiles through her fountains,
When my chariot is nigh.
Low moaneth the river,

As I sink to the west,
And my image forever

Lies hid in his breast.

IV.

"The children of beauty, Below and above,

In the light of my coming,

Glance backward in love.

Yet lone in my splendour,
Too lonely I reign,

'Mid the thousands that render

Their homage in vain.”

Thus sweetly sung that beauteous sphere,

And the echoes gently died;

And silence' self held a listening ear,

While the sister orb replied:

I.

"All lonely thou rovest,

'Mid the many that smile, Since the one that thou lovest, Is absent the while.

The mountain, the river,

The sons of the sky,

Not faithful forever

Will smile in thine eye.

II.

"Soon all will be scattered,
That worshipped before;
And the many that flattered,
Will flatter no more.
Then, wanderings all over,
Thou wilt sink to thy rest,
On the breast of thy lover,
The wave of the west."

179

VERSES

ON THE DRYING OF THE ELBE.*

Beneath the hiding waves of time
Are secrets, graven deep,

Of buried joy and wo and crime,
And those who see shall weep.

In life's gay morn secure we ride,
With breeze and prospect fair;
Oh! could we look beneath the tide,
And read the history there!

In fancy's fairest tints arrayed,

The sunlit billows glow,

While blasted hearts and hopes decayed

In darkness sleep below.

We walk o'er graves-the dust we tread
Hath many a tale of fear;
The fadeless footsteps of the dead,

In all our paths appear.

*“The heat of the summer having dried up the waters of the Elbe, a stone was discovered in its bed, bearing a date 200 years previous, and this inscription—' When the people saw me first, they wept; when they see me again, they shall weep yet more.'

The ceaseless whirl of life goes on,

And heartless nature blooms,

While countless generations gone

Have strewed the world with tombs.

Earth hath no stone, but on it set
Death's dreadful seal appears;

And scarce a clod, but hath been wet
With human blood and tears.

No desert wild, nor cavern lone,
Nor bleak, nor burning sky,

But oft hath heard the sufferer's groan,
And seen the wretched die.

The cooling breeze its freshness brings
From sighs that sorrow gave;
And beauty's favourite rose-bud springs
From Friendship's lowly grave.

Oh! why should nature smile so fair,

And put such glories on,

When her deep heart conceals despair, And her young joys are gone?