SAUL AND DAVID.
A VOICE of wailing and of grief
Fills the proud monarch's regal hall, There's madness on the kingly brow,
There's frenzy in the soul of Saul. Where is the bard whose soothing song Can solace to the mind impart ? Whose lips can utter words of peace,
And drive the demon from the heart? He comes, the shepherd-minstrel comes, His hallow'd fingers sweep the lyre; He comes, he comes, the holy bard,
All radiant with prophetic fire.
And thus, preluding on the strings,
A bold and joyous song he sings:
'Fill, fill the bowl with rosy wine,
To cheer the bosom of the king,
Deep in the goblet let it shine,
! May drive the fury from his brain. Hark! how the numbers fall, he strikes the lyre again!
'The Lord is good, the Lord is great!
Long doth His loving-kindness last; The heart that hath for pardon sued, Ne'er weeps in vain its errors past. 'Tis He can heal the suffering soul, 'Tis He can cheer in sorrow's day.'
The monarch listen'd, smiled, and wept— The evil spirit pass'd away.
GOD IN THE STORM.
A TEMPEST rent the starry dome,
And tortured ocean into foam.
Bending to earth my humbled head,
And wreathe it round with flowers of In solemn and religious dread,
The morn of life is on the wing, The time that flies returns no more: Joy hath its grief-love hath its sting— But wine rejoices to the core.'
The minstrel ceased the monarch smiled,
But still the song was vain,
It could not calm the frenzy wild
That burn'd within his brain.-
He raves! he raves !-O minstrel mild
Re-tune thy lyre again.
'Where shall the gloom that prompts
Find light, if not in Beauty's eye?
Where shall the aching forehead rest,
If not upon her snowy breast?
Love is the solace and relief,
Love is the balm for care and grief.'
The monarch scarcely heard the lay,
Delicious though it were,
And as its murmurs died away,
His eyes began to glare.
O minstrel still thy song is vain;
Perchance some sadder air
And kneeling on the sod,
I heard a voice proclaim aloud,
Whose echoes sprang from cloud to cloud,
'Great is the Lord our God !'
And ocean swell'd its waters vast,
Repeating, as it roar'd
In chorus with the furious blast,
"Oh, mighty is the Lord!' While the fierce lightning, flashing high, Traced the dread accents on the sky, Writing, as with a fiery rod,
Oh, mighty is the Lord our God !'
SAY not that any crime of man
Was e'er too great to be forgiven ;— Can we within our little span
Engrasp the stormy winds of heaven? Shall we attempt with puny force To lash back ocean with a rod, Arrest the planets in their course, Or weigh the mercies of our God?
THE ABOLITION BY GREAT BRITAIN OF SLAVERY IN HER
COLONIAL POSSESSIONS.
GRAND and auspicious was that happy time
When Britain rose, majestic and sublime;
Arm'd with the strength that only arms the just,
The light of Truth flash'd from her eyes august;
Wide o'er the earth her mighty hands she spread,
While rays of glory beam'd about her head-
The listless nations started and awoke,
As with loud voice the cheering words she spoke :
'No more,' she cried, 'no more, thou teeming earth,
For me or mine, shalt thou to slaves give birth;
No more for me shall helots till the soil--
Stripes their reward, and pain and hopeless toil ;
No more shall slaves produce vile wealth for me—
Joy! Afric, joy! thy swarthy sons are free!
Hear, all ye nations! hear the voice of truth,
And wake to pity and redeeming ruth;
The wealth is cursed that springs from human woe,
And he who trades in men is Britain's foe:
Freedom, God's gift, was kindly meant for all-
Poor suffering slaves! this hour your fetters fall!'
Earth, as she heard the loud majestic voice,
Shouted reply, and bade her sons rejoice:
The wise and good of every clime and caste
Hail'd a fair future, fairer than the past,
And pictured fondly, in the coming time,
Less blood and tears, less misery and crime.
Great was the boon, and pledge of thousands more--
Herald of peace and days of bliss in store!
FALSE HERO-WORSHIP.
'ALAS for men ! that they should be so blind,
And laud as gods these scourges of their kind!
Call each man glorious who has led a host,
And him most glorious who has murder'd most !
Alas! that men should lavish upon these
The most obsequious homage of their knees-
The most obstreperous flattery of their tongue-
That these alone should be by poets sung-
That good men's names should to oblivion fall,
But those of heroes fill the mouths of all-
That those who labour in the arts of peace,
Making the nations prosper and increase,
Should fill a nameless and unhonour'd grave,
Their worth forgotten by the crowds they save-
But that the leaders who despoil the earth,
Fill it with tears, and quench its children's mirth,
Should with their statues block the public way,
And stand adored as demi-gods for aye!
False greatness! where the pedestal for one,
Is on the heads of multitudes undone.
False admiration! given, not understood
False glory! only to be gain'd by blood!
From The Hope of the World'
WIND of the winter night, whence comest thou?
And whither, oh! whither, art wandering now?
Sad, sad is thy voice on this desolate moor,
And mournful, most mournful, thy howl at my door.
Say, where hast thou been on thy cloud-lifted car,
Say, what hast thou seen in thy roamings afar,
What sorrow impels thee, thou boisterous blast,
Thus to mourn and complain as thou journeyest past?
Dost weep that the green sunny summer hath fled,
That the leaves of the forest are wither'd and dead,
That the groves and the woodlands re-echo no more
The light-hearted music they teem'd with of yore?
That the song of the lark and the hum of the bee
Have ceased for awhile on the snow-cover'd lea?
Say, wind of the winter-night, whence comest thou,
And whither, oh! whither, art wandering now?
'I have come from the deep, where the storm in its wrath
Spread havoc and death on its pitiless path,
Where the billows rose up as the lightnings flew by
And twisted their arms in the dun-colour'd sky:
And I saw a frail vessel, all torn by the wave,
Drawn down with her crew to a fathomless grave,
And I heard the loud creak of her hull as I past,
And the flap of her sails and the crash of her mast;
And I raised my shrill voice on the cold midnight air,
To drown the last cry of the sailor's despair.
'Tis his requiem I tune as I howl through the sky,
And repent of the fury that caused him to die.
'And far have I roam'd on the desolate shore,
And the cold dreary wastes of the tenantless moor,
Where a hoary old man journey'd on through the plain,
To his bright-blazing hearth and his children again;
And I sigh'd as I rush'd o'er that desert of snow,
For I saw not the path where the traveller should go :
For a moment he paused in that wilderness drear,
And clasp'd his cold hands as he listen'd to hear
The bark of his dog from his cot in the dell,
Or the long-wish'd for toll of the far village bell.
Poor weary old man! he was feeble and chill,
And the sounds that he loved were all silent and still,
For vainly he turn'd his dim glance to the sky,
And vainly he sought with his tremulous eye
Some light in the distance, whose pale beaming ray
Might guide him aright on his comfortless way;
Till, fainting and chill, he turn'd wearily back,
And tried to recover the snow-hidden track.
Ah! vainly he strove, and no sound could he hear,
To tell his sad heart that a refuge was near,
When, worn by the load of his toil and his woe,
He mutter'd a prayer, and sank down on the snow;
And I heard the last gasp of his quick-fleeting breath, ́
His last dying groan, as he struggled with death:
And I mourn for him now on this desolate moor,
And tune his sad dirge as I howl at thy door.
'I have been where the snow on the chill mountain peak
Would have frozen the blood in the ruddiest cheek,
And for many a dismal and desolate day,
No beam of the sunshine has brighten'd my way;
But I weep not that winter hath bared the green tree,
And hush'd the sweet voice of the bird and the bee;
I sigh not that Summer hath fled from the plain,
For the Spring will return in its brightness again;
But I mourn and complain for the wail and the woe
That I've seen on my course as I journey'd below;
For I've heard the loud shout of the Demon of War,
And the peal of his guns as they flash'd from afar,
And heard the lone widows and orphans complain,
As they wet with their tears the pale cheeks of the slain;
And I sigh as I think on the miseries of man,
And the crimes and the follies that measure his span.'
THE SEA-SHORE.
COME, gentle phantasie,
Come to my lone retreat,
Beside the rolling sea,
Where the playful billows beat:
Come at still twilight's time,
When the star of evening beams above,
And looks on earth with a look of love,
From her far cerulean clime;
And on the shore
The waters' roar
Shall to our ears rough music make,
And sweet shall be
Their melody,
As the wind doth o'er them break.
Now fades the daylight o'er the deep,
And now the struggle and the strife,
The cares and toils of busy life,
Sink for awhile in sleep:
And she, Thought's pallid queen,
Arises on her gentle way,
Scattering far her tremulous ray
With calm and holy sheen.
Now is the hour when Feeling wakes,
Now is the hour when Fancy takes
Her far and heavenward flight;
Now every evil passion dies,
Now Hope lifts up her gentle eyes-
O lovely hour of night!
I gaze upon the roaring sea,
And vague deep thoughts crowd o'er my
mind.
There lies the dread immensity,
And o'er the region of the wind
Lies an immensity more dread,
On which the thought can not re-
pose,
Whose secrets we can not disclose-
O! happy, happy dead!
Perchance to you your God has given
To know the secrets of the heaven,
On angels' wings afar to fly,
And scan the wonders of the sky;
And often, 'mid the darkness dim,
The soul forgets its feeble shell,
As if 'twould pierce the ways of Him
Whose ways no human heart can tell.
The soul expands, as if to see
If it can grasp Eternity,
And pass the bounds of time and space--
But, ah! there is no resting-place
For such adventurous flight.
These are the aspirings of the spirit
To the home it shall inherit;
A dim, faint dream,
A feeble gleam
Of what the soul may be when pass'd this earthly night.
THE WOOD-NYMPH.
'Muse des bois et des accords champêtres.' FAR from bustle, strife, and care, 'Mong the woods I've woo'd her, And to her secluded nook, By the margin of a brook, And by waters bright and blue, Over meadows wet with dew,
Many a time pursued her :
And far away in forests lone,
Listening to the plaintive tone
Of the windy weather,
She and I, at midnight's time,
Have sat and sung together.
Poor she is in things of earth,
Poor in worldly treasure,
But she hath a smile of light,
And an eye of hazel bright,
Beaming love and pleasure.
A forest maid, she loves to dwell
In her solitary cell,
Nursing, in her still retreat,
All the passions mild and sweet;
And breathing many a plaintive ditty
Of Hope, and Joy, and Love, and Pity.
She is a fair and woodland nymph,
A wild and artless mountain beauty Whose witching tongue, Doth lure the young From lucre and hard duty. This nymph so poor, and yet so free, Who can she be but POESY?
TO AN EAGLE.
O FOR thy cleaving wings,
To brave the rugged blast,
In spite of wind and storm to soar
O'er mount and meadow vast!
O that I might, like thee,
O'er Alpine summits fly,
And travel, unconfined and free
The nearest to the sky!
O that mine eye, like thine,
Upon the sun might gaze,
And revel in that living light,
Undazzled by the blaze!
O that my rapid flight
O'er boundless ether driven,
Might never leave, for things of earth,
The brighter ones of heaven!
Here, when the soul inspired
Would leave the world behind,
Forgetting its affinity
To sorrow and mankind,
With eye like thine, to scan
The wonders of its birth,
Some petty care disturbs its flight,
And draws it back to earth.
O for thy cleaving wings!
O for thy toppling nest!
To dwell upon the mountain tops,
With Nature for my guest:
Fann'd by the rushing wind,
Rejoicing in the blast,
And soaring in the light of morn
O'er woods and waters vast!
O Night and Darkness, ye are wondrous
strong.-BYRON.
"TIS sweet to roam alone
In some sequester'd wood,
When slumbering Echo hears no sound,
When Night and Silence spread around
A holy solitude;
When through the vales,
Capricious gales
Sweep fitfully along in melancholy mood.
Oh! in that solemn hour,
When starry Night has flung
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