WRITTEN UNDER A VIEW OF BERSTED LODGE, BOGNOR.
IF e'er again my wayward fate
Should bring me, Lady, to your gate,
The trees and flowers might seem as fair
As in remembered days they were;
But should I in their loved haunts find
The friends that were so bright and kind?
My heart would seek with vain regret
Some tones and looks it dreams of yet;
I could not follow through the dance
The heroine of my first romance
At his own board I could not see
The kind old man that welcomed me.
When round the grape's rich juices pass, Sir William does not drain his glass; When music charms the listening throng, "O Pescator" is not the song ;
WRITTEN UNDER A VIEW OF BERSTED LODGE.
Queen Mab is ageing very fast,
And Colebs has a wife at last.
I too am changed, as others are;
I'm graver, wiser, sadder far :
I study reasons more than rhymes,
And leave my Petrarch for the "Times,"
And turn from Laura's auburn locks
To ask my friend the price of stocks.
A wondrous song does Memory sing,
A merry—yet a mournful thing;
When thirteen years have fleeted by,
"Twere hard to say if you or I
Would gain or lose in smiles or tears,—
By just forgetting thirteen years.
LATIN HYMN TO THE VIRGIN.
VIRGIN Mother, thou hast known
Joy and sorrow like my own;
In thy arms the bright Babe lay,
As my own in mine to-day;
So he wept and so he smiled;
Ave Mary! guard my child!
From the pains and perils spread
Round about our path and bed,
Fierce desires, ambitious schemes,
Moody doubts, fantastic dreams,
Pleasures idle, passions wild,
Ave Mary! guard my child!
Make him whatsoe'er may be
Dearest to the saints and thee;
Tell him, from the throne above,
What to loathe and what to love;
To be true and just and mild,
Ave Mary! teach my child!
By the wondrous mercy won
For the world by thy blest Son,
By the rest his labours wrought,
By the bliss his tortures bought,
By the Heaven he reconciled,
Ave Mary bless my child!
If about his after fate
Sin and sorrow darkly wait,
Take him rather to thine arms
From the world and the world's harms;
Thus unscathed, thus undefiled,
Ave Mary! take my child!
FOR whom was the Sabbath made?—
It brings repose and rest;
It hushes study's aching head,
Ambition's anxious breast:
The slave that digs the mine,
The serf that ploughs the soil,
For them it was ordained to shine ;
It is for all that toil.
For whom was the Sabbath made?—
It opens the Book of Peace,
Which tells of flowers that never fade,
Of songs that never cease:
If the hopes you nursed decline,
If the friends you cherished die,
you it was ordained to shine ;—
It is for all that sigh.
|