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FELICIA HEMANS.

Wind of the sunny south! oh, still delay

In the gay woods and in the golden air,

Like to a good old age released from care, Journeying, in long serenity, away.

In such a bright, late quiet, would that I

Might wear out life like thee, 'mid bowers and brooks,

And dearer yet, the sunshine of kind looks,

And music of kind voices ever nigh;

And when my last sand twinkled in the glass,
Pass silently from men, as thou dost pass.

FELICIA HEMANS.

BY LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.

NATURE doth mourn for thee.

There is no need

For man to strike his plaintive lyre and fail,
As fail he must, if he attempt thy praise.
The little plant that never sang before,

Save one sad requiem, when its blossoms fell,
Sighs deeply through its drooping leaves for thee,

-As for a florist fallen. The ivy, wreathed

FELICIA HEMANS.

Round the gray turrets of a buried race,

And the tall palm that like a prince doth rear
Its diadem 'neath Asia's burning sky,

With their dim legends blend thy hallowed name.
Thy music, like baptismal dew, did make
Whate'er it touched most holy. The pure shell,
Laying its pearly lip on Ocean's floor,

The cloistered chambers, where the sea-gods sleep,
And the unfathomed melancholy main,

Lament for thee, through all the sounding deeps.
Hark! from the snow-breasted Himmaleh to where
Snowdon doth weave his coronet of cloud,

From the scathed pine tree, near the red man's hut,

To where the everlasting banian builds

Its vast columnac temple, comes a moan

For thee, whose ritual made each rocky height

An altar, and each cottage-home, the haunt
Of Poesy.

Yea, thou didst find the link

That joins mute nature to ethereal mind,

And make that link a melody.

The couch

Of thy last sleep, was in the native clime
Of song and eloquence and ardent soul,
Spot fitly chosen for thee. Perchance, that isle
So loved of favouring skies, yet banned by fate,
Might shadow forth thine own unspoken lot.

K*

99

15108B

100

FELICIA HEMANS.

For at thy heart the ever-pointed thorn
Did gird itself, until the life-stream oozed
In gushes of such deep and thrilling song,
That angels poising on some silver cloud
Might linger mid the errands of the skies,
And listen, all unblamed.

How tenderly

Doth Nature draw her curtain round thy rest!
And like a nurse, with finger on her lip,
Watch, lest some step disturb thee, striving still
From other touch, thy sacred harp to guard.
Waits she thy waking, as the mother waits
For some pale babe, whose spirit sleep hath stolen,
And laid it dreaming on the lap of Heaven?
We say not thou art dead. We dare not. No.
For every mountain stream and shadowy dell
Where thy rich harpings linger, would hurl back
The falsehood on our souls. Thou spak'st alike
The simple language of the freckled flower,
And of the glorious stars. God taught it thee.
And from thy living intercourse with man
Thou shalt not pass away, until this earth
Drops her last gem into the doom's-day flame.
Thou hast but taken thy seat with that blest choir,
Whose hymns thy tuneful spirit learned so well
From this sublunar terrace, and so long

Interpreted.

AN INVITATION.

BY WILLIS GAYLORD CLARK.

A

"They that seek me early shall find me."

COME, while the blossoms of thy years are brightest,
Thou youthful wanderer in a flowery maze,
Come, while the restless heart is bounding lightest,

And joy's pure sunbeams tremble in thy ways;

Come, while sweet thoughts, like summer-buds unfolding,
Waken rich feelings in the careless breast,

While yet thy hand the ephemeral wreath is holding,
Come, and secure interminable rest!

Soon will the freshness of thy days be over,

And thy free buoyancy of soul be flown;
Pleasure will fold her wing, and friend and lover
Will to the embraces of the worm have gone;

Those who now love thee, will have passed for ever:

Their looks of kindness will be lost to thee;

Thou wilt need balm to heal thy spirit's fever,

As thy sick heart broods over years to be!