Three humble voyagers. (1) with looks inspired, And hearts enkindled with a holier flame Than ever lit to empire or to fame Devoutly stand: their choral accents rise On wings of harmony beyond the skies;
And, 'midst the songs that seraph-minstrels sing, Day without night, to their immortal king These simple strains, which erst Bohemian hills Echoed to pathless woods and desert rills
Now heard from Shetland's azure bound-are known In heaven; and He who sits upon the throne In human form, with mediatorial power, Remembers Calvary, and hails the hour When, by the Almighty Father's high decree, The utmost north to him shall bow the knee, And, won by love, an untamed rebel race Kiss the victorious sceptre of his grace.
Then to his eye, whose instant glance pervades
Heaven's heights, earth's circle, hell's profoundest shades, Is there a group more lovely than those three Night-watching pilgrims on the lonely sea? Or to his ear, that gathers, in one sound, The voices of adoring worlds around, Comes there a breath of more delightful praise Than the faint notes his poor disciples raise, Ere on the treacherous main they sink to rest, Secure as leaning on their Master's breast?
They sleep; but memory wakes; and dreams array Night in a lively masquerade of day;
The land they seek, the land they leave behind,
Meet on mid-ocean in the plastic mind;
One brings forsaken home and friends so nigh,
That tears in slumber swell the unconscious eye:
The other opens, with prophetic view,
Perils which e'en their fathers never knew
(Though schooled by suffering, long inured to toil,
Outcasts and exiles from their natal soil);
Strange scenes, strange men; untold, untried distress; Pain, hardships, famine, cold, and nakedness,
Diseases; death in every hideous form,
On shore, at sea, by fire, by flood, by storm;
Wild beasts, and wilder men-unmoved with fear,
Health, comfort, safety, life, they count not dear,
May they but hope a Saviour's love to shew, And warn one spirit from eternal woe;
Nor will they faint, nor can they strive in vain, Since thus to live is Christ, to die is gain.
"Tis morn: the bathing moon her lustre shrouds; Wide o'er the east impends an arch of clouds That spans the ocean; while the infant dawn Peeps through the portal o'er the liquid lawn That ruffled by an April gale appears,
Between the gloom and splendour of the spheres, Dark-purple as the moorland heath, when rain Hangs in low vapours over the autumnal plain : Till the full sun, resurgent from the flood, Looks on the waves, and turns them into blood; But quickly kindling, as his beams aspire, The lambent billows play in forms of fire.
1 The first Christian missionaries to Greenland.
Where is the vessel? Shining through the light, Like the white sea-fowl's horizontal flight. Yonder she wings, and skims, and cleaves her way Through refluent foam and iridescent spray.
Night is the time for rest; How sweet, when labours close, To gather round an aching breast The curtain of repose,
Stretch the tired limbs, and lay the head Upon our own delightful bed!
Night is the time for dreams;
The gay romance of life,
The full moon's earliest glance,
That brings into the home-sick mind All we have loved and left behind.
Night is the time for care Brooding on hours misspent, To see the spectre of despair Come to our lonely tent;
Like Brutus, 'midst his slumbering host,
When truth that is, and truth that scems, Summoned to die by Cæsar's ghost. Blend in fantastic strife; Ah! visions less beguiling far
Than waking dreams by daylight are!
Night is the time for toil;
To plough the classic field, Intent to find the buried spoil Its wealthy furrows yield; Till all is ours that sages taught, That poets sang or heroes wrought.
Night is the time to weep;
To wet with unseen tears Those graves of memory where sleep The joys of other years;
Hopes that were angels in their birth, But perished young like things on earth!
Night is the time to watch;
On ocean's dark expanse To hail the Pleiades, or catch
Night is the time to think; Then from the eye the soul
Takes flight, and on the utmost brink Of yonder starry pole, Discerns beyond the abyss of night The dawn of uncreated light.
Night is the time to pray; Our Saviour oft withdrew To desert mountains far away;
So will his followers do; Steal from the throng to haunts untrod, And commune there alone with God.
Night is the time for death;
When all around is peace, Calmly to yield the weary breath
From sin and suffering cease: Think of heaven's bliss, and give the sign To parting friends-such death be mine!
Light as a flake of foam upon the wind, Keel-upward from the deep emerged a shell, Shaped like the moon ere half her horn is filled: Fraught with young life, it righted as it rose, And moved at will along the yielding water. The native pilot of this little bark
Put out a tier of oars on either side, Spread to the wafting breeze a twofold sail, And mounted up and glided down the billow In happy freedom, pleased to feel the air, And wander in the luxury of light.
Worth all the dead creation, in that hour, To me appeared this lonely Nautilus,
My fellow-being, like myself alive.
Entranced in contemplation, vague yet sweet, I watched its vagrant course and rippling wake, Till I forgot the sun amidst the heavens.
It closed, sunk dwindled to a point, then nothing; While the last bubble crowned the dimpling eddy Through which mine eye still giddily pursued it, A joyous creature vaulted through the air-
The aspiring fish that fain would be a bird, On long, light wings, that flung a diamond-shower Of dew-drops round its evanescent form, Sprang into light and instantly descended. Ere I could greet the stranger as a friend, Or mourn his quick departure, on the surge A shoal of dolphins, tumbling in wild glee,
Glowed with such orient tints, they might have been The rainbow's offspring, when it met the ocean In that resplendent vision I had seen.
While yet in ecstasy I hung o'er these,
With every motion pouring out fresh beauties, As though the conscious colours came and went At pleasure, glorying in their subtle changes- Enormous o'er the flood, Leviathan
Looked forth, and from his roaring nostrils sent Two fountains to the sky, then plunged amain In headlong pastime through the closing gulf. The Recluse.
A fountain issuing into light, Before a marble palace, threw To heaven its column, pure and bright, Returning thence in showers of dew; But soon a humbler course it took, And glid away a nameless brook.
Flowers on its grassy margin sprang, Flies o'er its eddying surface played; Birds 'midst the alder-branches sang, Flocks through the verdant meadows strayed;
The weary there lay down to rest, And there the halcyon built her nest.
'Twas beautiful to stand and watch The fountain's crystal turn to gems, And from the sky such colours catch As if 'twere raining diadems; Yet all was cold and curious art, That charmed the eye, but missed the heart.
Its lovely links had power to bind In welcome chains my wandering mind.
So thought I when I saw the face By happy portraiture revealed, Of one adorned with every grace,
Her name and date from me concealed, But not her story; she had been The pride of many a splendid scene.
She cast her glory round a court,
And frolicked in the gayest ring, Where fashion's high-born minions sport Like sparkling fireflies on the wing; But thence, when love had touched her soul,
To nature and to truth she stole,
From din, and pageantry, and strife,
'Midst woods and mountains, vales and plains,
She treads the paths of lowly life, Yet in a bosom-circle reigns, No fountain scattering diamond-show-
The wealthiest isles, the most enchanting shores, Views not a realm so bountiful and fair, Nor breathes the spirit of a purer air; In every clime the magnet of his soul,
Touched by remembrance, trembles to that pole; For in this land of heaven's peculiar grace; The heritage of nature's noblest race, There is a spot of earth supremely blest, A dearer, sweeter spot than all the rest, Where man, creation's tyrant, casts aside His sword and sceptre, pageantry and pride, While in his softened looks benignly blend The sire, the son, the husband, brother, friend. Here woman reigns; the mother, daughter, wife, Strew with fresh flowers the narrow way of life! In the clear heaven of her delightful eye, An angel-guard of loves and graces lie; Around her knees domestic duties meet, And fireside pleasures gambol at her feet.
Where shall that land, that spot of earth be found? Art thou a man?-a patriot ?-look around; Oh, thou shalt find, howe'er thy footsteps roam, That land thy country, and that spot thy home!
THE HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER.
The HON. WILLIAM ROBERT SPENCER (1770-1834) published occasional poems of that description named vers de societe, whose highest object is to gild the social hour. They were exaggerated in compliment and adulation, and wittily parodied in the 'Rejected Addresses.' As a companion, Mr. Spencer was much prized by the brilliant circles of the metropolis; but, if we may credit an anecdote told by Rogers, he must have been heartless and artificial. Moore wished that Spencer should bail him when he was in custody after the affair of the duel with Jeffrey. Spencer did not seem much inclined to do so, remarking that he could not well go out, for it was already twelve o'clock, and he had to be dressed by four. Spencer, falling into pecuniary difficulties, removed to Paris, where he died. His poems were collected and published in 1835. Mr. Spencer translated the 'Leonora' of Bürger with great success, and in a vein of similar excellence composed some original ballads, one of which, marked by simplicity and pathos, we subjoin:
Berth Gelert, or the Grave of the Greyhound.
The spearmen heard the bugle sound, And cheerily smiled the morn; And many a brach, and many a hound, Obeyed Llewelyn's horn.
And still he blew a louder blast, And gave a lustier cheer:
'Come, Gelert, come, wert never last Llewelyn's horn to hear.
'Oh, where doth faithful Gelert roam, The flower of all his race;
So true, so brave-a lamb at home, A lion in the chase?
"Twas only at Llewelyn's board
The faithful Gelert fed;
He watched, he served, he cheered his
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