Vain human reason, when 'tis left aloneIs not unlike a bark upon the sea -Useful or useless - ruined or secureOnly as she is guided from within;A thing of power and motion and of grace,But yet an atom when the tempests rise.When all is calm, out on…
How calmly sinks the parting sun!
Yet Twilight lingers still,
And beautiful as dreams of Heaven,
It slumbers on the hill;
Earth sleeps, with all her glorious things, Beneath the Holy Spirit's wings, And, rendering back the hues above, Seems…
A voice amid the desert!
Not of him,
Who in rough garments clad, and locust-fed,Cried to the sinful multitude, and claimedFruits of repentance, with the lifted scourgeOf terror and reproof. A milder guide,With gentler tones, doth teach the…
Oh! let the soul its slumbers break, Arouse its senses and awake,
To see how soon
Life, like its glories, glides away, And the stern footsteps of decay
Come stealing on.
And while we view the rolling tide, Down which our flowing minutes…
There is an evening twilight of the heart,
When its wild passion-waves are lulled to rest,
And the eye sees life's fairy scenes depart,
As fades the day beam in the rosy west.
'Tis with a nameless feeling of regret
We gaze upon them as they melt…
I woke, and every lordling of the groveWas clad in diamonds, and the lowliest shrubDid wear its crest of brilliants gallantly.The swelling hillocks, with their woven vines,The far seen forest, and the broken hedge,Yea, every thicket gleam'd in bright…
Sion, thine eye beheld and wept too late
O'er tower and temple crumbling in decay,
The crashing column and the falling gate; -
And saw the deadly paleness of dismay
The faces of they trembling priests' array,
And high-born maids and matrons…
While sleep my senses bound,
There stole upon my ear
A rapturous and unearthly sound
Of voices soft and clear.
For one short fleeting breath,
Methought angelic forms,
From this low world of sin and death,
Had borne me in their arms.
At…
I asked the charmer, HOPE, to stay,And chase my hov'ring fears away;She faintly smil'd, and bade me showWhere Hope could rest her foot below.I look'd for strength to build her seat,Uprightness to uphold her feet,My mind display'd her utmost…
"Bright effluence of bright essence increate! Before the sun, before the heavens, thou wert!" MILTON.
I.
From the quickened womb of the primal gloom
The sun rolled black and bare,
Till I wove him a vest for his Ethiop breast,
Of the threads of…
