\rxTi hwv *ur ■ ."& V— * s v/Sa3AINfl-3UV AUSTRALIA; WITH OTHER POEMS. BY THOMAS K. HERVEY, TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. SECOND EDITION. WITH ADDITIONAL POEMS. LONDON: PRINTED FOR HURST, ROBINSON, AND CO. 90, CHEAPSIDE, AND 8, PALL MALL ; ANU ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE & CO. EDINBURGH. 1825. L(l N D II \ . PRINTED BY 1). BENSLE1 BOM ( 01 i; I . TO JAMES HERVEY, ESQ. My dear Father, When I inscribed to you the former edition of these Poems, my motive was, I fear, a selfish one. In that anxiety which attends an author on his first public appearance, it was natural that I should seek to place my little volume under the pro- tection of one from whom I had been taught, by a long course of experiences, to expect indulgence for its failings, and a partial ap- preciation of its merits. I dedicate to you the present edition in a purer and better feeling. The book has passed through its ordeal, and the public favour which has attended it has rendered it no longer necessary that it should look for a protector. To you, from whom it sought shelter in its fears, it returns in its triumph. To you belong the first fruits of those talents which, whatever their nature and extent, were fostered by your kindness, and called into action by your encouragement. Your affectionate Son, THE AUTHOR. Oxford, bth December, 1824. 715968 CONTENTS. PAOB BLLEM 100 sin REMEMBER THE MAID, &C 105 STANZAS POR MUSH it)'.' STANZAS TO Ill MY SISTER'8 GRAVE 114 WRITTEN GNDERASPRIG OF HEATHER AND HAREBELL 118 HEBREW MELODY 120 i -a in BLLEM ! HUSH, &C 122 STANZAS FOR MUSIC 124 WRITTEN IN A YOUNG lady's ALBUM 127 WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM 132 TO THE MEMORY OF A YOUNG LADY WHO DIED ABROAD 136 THE CONVICT SHir 142 TO MYRA I 45 I AM ALL ALONE, &C 148 BONO 150 TO ELLEN 152 TO A FRIEND 155 SONG ' 159 TO A YOUNG LADY, WITH A WREATH OF FLOWERS . 1(11 TO A LOCK OF HAIR 163 A FAREWLL 167 PREFACE. In presenting the following Poems to the Public, the Author wishes, for his own sake, to mention, that none of them were originally written with such a view. He is, at the same time, very conscious that the world will make its award upon their merits, without reference to the motives by which he may have been actuated in laying them before it. The principal poem in this volume has, for its subject, those vast tracts of country lately discovered in the Pacific, Indian, and Southern Oceans ; so far as they are included between the boundaries marked out by the President De b X PREFACE. Brosses, and adopted by Pinkerton, for that division of the whole called Australasia. These boundaries are contained by an imaginary line, drawn in the latitude of 3° or 4* to the north of the equator ; then passing south, in the meridian of 170° east from Greenwich, so as to include the New Hebrides ; thence, in the parallel of 30° south, gradually stretching to 175° west from Greenwich, including New Zealand and Chatham Island ; and which may be extended on the south as far as 60°, where the fields of ice begin to appear — or even further. As yet, however, no islands of any consequence have been discovered in a latitude lower than 50° south ; and, conse- quently, on that side, the strict demarcation must be left open to the labours of future navigators. As at present laid down, they comprise the central and chief land of Notasia, or New Holland — Papua, or New Guinea — New Britain, and New Ireland, with the Solomon Isles — New Caledonia, PREFACE XI and the New Hebrides — New Zealand — Van Dieman's Land — Kerguelen's Islands, or Islands of Desolation — and the islands of St. Paul and Amsterdam — together with numerous reefs and islets of coral, scattered over the Australian seas. It is considered probable that the extreme northern parts of Papua, or New Guinea, were not wholly unknown to the Chinese : but, it is pretty certain that their discoveries extended no lower ; as none of the countries lying to the south of that position appear to be, in any way, indicated by the celebrated Marco Paolo. However this may be, the western world owes its acquaintance with them to that species of philosophy which o-uided Columbus to the discovery of America. A belief had long prevailed, in speculative geo- graphy, that the balance of land and water pointed out the existence of a great southern continent, or Terra Australis ; supposed to lie in the Southern or Antartic Ocean, towards the pole. This theory mi PREFACE. for two centuries, excited the rapacity of the different European states ; and expedition after expedition was fitted out, for the purpose of discovering and appropriating the imagined treasures of this terra incognita. The earliest European navigators in this part of the globe were the Spaniards and Portuguese; who, (from an ancient map lodged in the British Museum, and which Pinkerton examined,) appear to have been acquainted with the eastern coast of New Holland, now known by the name of New South Wales ; and, in 1606, the Spanish Pedro Fernandez de Quiros performed that celebrated voyage in which he discovered the New Hebrides, and indulged himself with the belief that he had at length found the long-sought southern conti- nent. These adventurers were supplanted by the Dutch; who are the chief discoverers in this quarter between the years 1616, when the western extremity of New Holland was explored by PREFACE. Xlll Haitog — and 1644, about which time the famous Tasman performed almost a circuit of Australia, and fell in with the southern land of Van Dieman, together with New Zealand and some isles of less consequence. These discoveries were followed up by many- others, previous to the voyages of our own im- mortal Cook, in 1768, 1772, and 1776 : — " but the superior amplitude and accuracy of the details obtained by him," observes Pinkerton, " may be almost said to amount to a new discovery." He explored the whole of these seas, — examined the discoveries and corrected the charts of former navigators, — ascertained, with precision, the relative positions of the different islands, and the figures of their coasts, — and expelled the ideal continent of the south from geography. The vast island of New Holland — almost as large as all Europe — has been considered by some geographers as entitled to the appellation of a xiv PREFACE. continent, and as being, in itself, a sufficient com- pensation for the terra incognita of theorists. As, however, it has only lately been discovered that Van Dieman's Land (which was formerly supposed to be a part of New Holland,) is sepa- rated from it by a channel called Basse's Strait 5 and, as other islands in these seas, formerly supposed to be one, have been ascertained to be similarly divided ; it seems probable that this extensive land (of the interior of which but little can be said to be yet known, notwithstanding the recent expeditions undertaken for the purpose of exploring it,) will be found, when more fully examined, to consist of two or more islands, intersected by narrow seas. It does not appear that the late journeys of Mr. Oxley have done much towards setting that question at rest : — and the title of" Australia" has been adopted for this poem, as not only better adapted to poetic purposes than Australasia ; but, also, as being PREFACE. XV somewhat more expressive of a division of the globe composed of numerous distinct parts, none of which is known to claim a more dignified title than that of island. There is not a more sublime theory in geography than the one alluded to in the conclusion of this poem. There is scarcely a league in the Pacific or Indian Oceans which is not spotted by a coral formation, in one or other of its various stages of progression — from a mere rock, just shewing its head above water, to a fertile and inhabited island. For an account of these corals, and their wonderful labours, the reader is referred to Captain Flinders's narrative of his voyage in the Pacific ; and, also, to the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Their slow and imperceptible toil is continually raising new structures throughout these seas ; which harden with time, and become solid and ever-increasing masses, from the base to ihe summit : till, visited by the birds of ocean. XVI PREFACE. they receive from them the seeds of trees and plants from adjacent islands ; and exhibit, by degrees, all the beauties of vegetation, — inviting some wandering tribe to come and fix its habi- tation among their primaeval fruits and flowers. Whether the whole of the islands throughout these seas are the result of a process like this, it is impossible to determine, with such data as we at present possess : — but it is to this theory, in its extent, that an allusion is likewise made towards the close of the first part of this poem. To the eye of geologists the isles of Sunda, the Moluccas, and others in the Indian Ocean, are gradually enlarging : and the time must come — however remote — when Australasia and Polynesia, with the Asiatic Islands, will unite to form one vast con- tinent with Asia, — excepting where the currents, created by these very causes, shall operate to prevent their universal extension. However over- whelming may be the idea of the disproportion PREFACE. XVII between the agent and the effect — a world built by atoms ! — this result is physically certain : and the waters of the ocean, in their search for a new bed, must destroy one of the old continents. The theory is somewhat more arbitrary which assigns that fate to Africa ; but it proceeds upon the supposition that the most useless and exhausted will perish. In this case, the Atlantic, Indian, and Southern oceans will be united ; and,— owing to the rapid progress which is now making in the moral and religious cultivation of America, — the time will probably come when (upon the foregoing supposition,) Asia will be the only unchristianized portion of the globe. As, however, it would then be embraced on all sides by Christian nations, the author has ventured to render the preceding theory available for the purposes of poetry ; and to couple it with that scriptural prophecy which proclaims the universal extension of Christianity over the whole earth — a prophecy, in the ful- wiii ruEFACE. lilment of which, Britain (from her labours in the east and in the west,) is, in every point of view, entitled to the principal share of merit, as an agent. It is remarkable that in this great division of the globe there is no animal of a ferocious character, but Man. The natives of many of the islands, and particularly those inhabiting that part of New Holland with which we are most intimately acquainted, are in the earliest stage of society which has yet been discovered in any part of the world. There remain amongst them, as far as we yet know, no positive means of determining their origin. It is certain that a large portion of the Australian population is stamped with the African or Negro character ; and this circumstance has induced some to assign to their aboriginal tribes a descent from the inhabitants of Madagascar, or the eastern coasts of Africa : while others, with great appearance of probability, observe, that,- as PREFACE. XIX in many of even the most remote islands of Poly- nesia, the language and manners indicate a connexion with southern Asia ; and, as the passage from the Asiatic coast, over the Oriental Archipelago, and the whole of the Australasian and Polynesian chains, is continuous, and, as it were, step by step, — they are, in all likelihood, sprung from the wide diffusion of the Malays. There seems no good reason why these two theories should stand opposed to each other, as they are perfectly capable of being united. — The wide expanse of waters towards America, which presents a chasm, apparently destitute of islands, renders their emigration from those shores less probable. Upon the close of the American War, in 1786, Botany Bay was chosen as a proper place of transportation for criminals. Of those who took part in the debates upon that question, the more illiberal and narrow-minded, unaccustomed to x\' PREFACE. extended and philosophical views of human nature, ridiculed the strong colours in which its advocates painted the future condition of a nation which was to be the offspring of crime; and were alike sceptical as to the possibility of reclaiming the natives from darkness — and the colony from guilt ; and uniting them in social ties, and by social interests. The subject was one which afforded ample materials for ridicule to those who love better to rail than reason : but nearly half a century has since elapsed ; — the colony (which was shortly afterwards removed to Sydney Cove, on the south side of Port Jackson,) is in a condition to justify the expectations which were formed of it ; — the moral and natural soils have been found alike fitted to repay the labours of European culti- vation ; — and the author exposes himself to slight danger of contempt, in drawing a picture so warm and enthusiastic as that in which he has ventured to prefigure the possible greatness of Australia. PREFACE. XXI From these particulars, it is presumed that the plan pursued in the conduct of this poem will be easily understood. It opens with an apostrophic description of the parent tree from which this mighty scion is to spring ; and the length of that introduction can only be justified, and reconciled to proportion, by considering how much it is the author's scope and design to represent this eastern structure as growing immediately out of that spirit of enterprise which leads Great Britain to extend her researches and her arts through all parts of the earth ; and to look upon Australasia in the east — like America in the west — as upon a young and promising nation ; giving, in the vigour of its youth, the pledge of a glorious maturity ; destined to act a mighty part upon the theatre of this world ; and to perpetuate the memory of its ancestral isle, when it shall lie a ruin upon the waters. A slight sketch is then attempted to be given of the progress of Austra- XXll PREFACE. lian discovery ; and a cursory view taken of the extent and beauty of modern Australasia. The second part opens with a description of that moral degradation which disfigures this fair and wide portion of creation, affording an opportunity for allusions to the manners and customs of its inhabitants ; and the ground is then cleared for the introduction of an episode, in which it is endeavoured, by a figure, to connect the first appearance of the British flag, off the western coast of New Holland, with the matured and distant glories of Australia. Of the plan here explained, however, the text itself furnishes little more than a sketch ; and, while it is due to the author to state that this poem is the result of a very short period, taken from other studies, the public have a right to be told that, had it been originally written with a view to their perusal, it would have challenged more of his time and attention. PREFACE. XXU1 With regard to the minor pieces which occupy the volume-, they are entirely fugitive, and were written at different periods ; some of them many years ago. As they were chiefly composed under the inducement of private circumstances, and for the gratification of those private friends to whom the author hopes they may, in their present form, have a more permament value, he feels himself called upon, in submitting them to more general perusal, to claim for them the indulgence of the Public. To the present edition are added a few small pieces, which were not contained in the former one. They are of the same slight texture with the rest of the minor poems ; and are, the author is sensible, a very inadequate acknowledgment of the favourable reception which he has met with from the Public. They are printed together, at the end of the volume, so as not to interfere with the arrangement ob- served in the first impression. ERRATUM. Preface, p. xiii. 1. I, for Haitog read Hartog. AUSTRALIA " The climate's delicate ; the air most sweet ; ■Fertile the isle." Winter's Tale. " What," replied' Franklin, " is the use of a newborn child ?— It may become a man I " AUSTRALIA. PART I. - Isle of the ocean ! Zion of the seas ! Child of the waves ! and nursling of the breeze ! How beauteous, Albion ! on thy lonely steep, Thou risest, like a vision, in the deep ! The temple of the brave, the good, the free, Built by some spirit in the circling sea ! — Still hast thou floated, like a thing of light, Through all the darkness of the moral night ; Alone upon the waves, — the hallowed ark Where Freedom sheltered when the world was dark ; 4 AUSTRALIA. Bade cxil'd Piety, Truth, Valour, come, And every bleeding Virtue find a home ; While Science left her eastern home for thee, And nestled, like the halcyon, in the sea! Above thee, gentlest airs, in gladness, meet ; Tlie billows break, in music, at thy feet; And heaven's purest dews, and holiest dies, Weep on thy breast, and brighten in thy skies ! Rome of the waters ! on thy sea-girt rock/') Far from the battle, and the tempest's shock, Thou sittest proudly, on thine ocean throne, A sceptred queen, majestic and alone ! In fairy state, on emerald couch reclined, Rocked by the waves, and cradled in the wind! Far o'er the deep thy crimson flag, unfurled, Streams, like a meteor, to the gazing world : With stately necks and bounding motion, ride Thy gallant barks, like swans, upon the tide ; Lift up their swelling bosoms to the sky, And spread their wings, to woo the gales from high. AUSTRALIA. From clime to clime thy hardy children roam, The wave their world — the ship their island-home - Where'er the waters in their wildness roar, Or lead their surges to the sounding shore ; Wherever winds lift up their song on high, Or mercy paints an Iris in the sky ; Where o'er the burning line the billows roll, Or lash themselves to madness at the Pole ; Through seas o'er which the spirit of the north Marshalls his clouds, and sends his icebergs forth ; Where the dark waves, without a tempest, roar, As avalanches thunder from the shore ; 'Mid everlasting cones that rise sublime, The trophies and the monuments of time, Sparkle like sapphire temples in the sun, And make a daylight when the day is done ; Where, in the heaven while meteor phantoms fly, A thousand points reflect them ere they die, And crystal pyramids and icy spires Receive, and then fling back the parting fires ; 6 AUSTRALIA. Where mountain snows, by ages piled on high, And glacier turrets, towering to the sky, Return, in dazzling hues, the rushing light, And shine, like moons, along the brow of night ; Where in the zenith smiles the polar star ;(') While the cold sun looks dimly from afar, Obliquely scans the drear horizon round, And flings Periscian shadows on the ground : — Or, where he flashes summer through the sky, While all its blooms burst forth beneath his eye; Where faints the magnet 'mid the burning zone,( 3 ^ Rul'd by a power mysterious as its own; Where glow the midnight waves in liquid flame/ 4 ) And heaven is gemm'd with stars without a name.- Through hurricanes by night, and calms by day, Thy gallant children win their steady way ; Borne by the billows, wafted by the breeze, Thy forests float through undiscovered seas, Kxplore the mines where science hides her stores, And waft her treasures to thy island shores. AUSTRALIA. Gem of the ocean ! Empress of the sea ! My heart could weep in fondness over thee ; My soul looks forward, through a mist of tears, To pierce the darkness of the coming years, And dimly reads, amid the future gloom, Warnings she dares not utter of thy doom. And canst thou perish, island of the free? Shall ruin dare to fling her shroud o'er thee ? Thou who dost light the nations, like a star, In solitary grandeur, from afar ! Thou who hast been, indeed, the pillar'd lights For Israel's sons, in superstition's night ! Can desolation reach thy hallowed strand, While Shakespeare's spirit breathes along the land, While time o'er Milton's grave fleets powerless by, And Newton's memory links thee with the sky? Alas for power, and pride, and empire gone ! The East has wept o'er lofty Babylon : 8 AUSTRALIA. Where is the earthly throne of Jesse's stem? The Turk keeps watch upon Jerusalem : The sun lights up a desert, when he falls Where Thebes once rear'd her hundred-portall'd walls ; And vainly seeks, where rank the wall-flower grows, The lyre whose song should lull him to repose :(6) Few lone memorials mark the silent spot Where Memphis was — and tell that she is not :<«) Balbec is shrouded in mysterious fame :W Troy is a tale : Palmyra is a name : Fair Carthage flourishes in Mantuan lays : And Athens is a dream of other days: To Fancy's ear the very breeze complains, Where more than ruin haunts the Latian plains ; And worse than desolation walks the land Where Freedom sprung, beneath her hero's hand.W) — Oh ! for a Brutus, in these later years, To burst the heavier bonds his country wears ! Oh ! for a Tully with the silver tongue ! Aud oh, Venusia ! that thy harp were strung AUSTRALIA. One hour, to tell her sons the spell that lies In the deep azure of Italian skies ! And where art thou, with all thy songs and smiles, Thou dream-like city of the hundred isles ?^ 10 ^ Thy marble columns, and thy princely halls, Thy merry masques, and moonlight carnivals ; Thy weeping myrtles, and thy orange bowers, Thy lulling fountains, 'mid ambrosial flowers ; The cloudless beauty of thy deep-blue skies, Thy star-light serenades to ladies' eyes ; Thy lion, looking o'er the Adrian sea/ 11 ) Defiance to the world, and power to thee ? — That pageant of the sunny waves is gone, Her glory lives on memory's page alone ; It flashes still in Shakespeare's living lay, And Otway's song has snatched it from decay ; But ah ! her Chian steeds of brass no more May lord it proudly over sea and shore ; Nor ducal sovereigns launch upon the tide, To win the Adriatic for their bride; 10 AUSTRALIA. Hush'd is the music of her gondoliers, And fled her glory of a thousand years ; And Tasso's spirit round her seems to sigh, In every Adrian gale that wanders by ! And oh, my native isle ! the day may come When thou must fall before as dark a doom, When, idly furled, thy time-worn flag shall sleep, And thou shalt lie a wreck upon the deep. But thou hast writ thy records, where, sublime, They scorn the strength of tempest and of time. - What though the temple from its base decline? Its hallowed things may deck another shrine. What though thou perish on thy northern wave ? Thy phoenix-spirit shall escape that grave ; Thy fame shall mock the wasting flood of years ; Worlds are thy children — continents thy heirs ! I sec them in the east and in the west, Where'er the ocean heaves her troubled breast. AUSTRALIA. 1 1 — Wide o'er the regions of the setting sun, Where mighty streams through vast savannahs run ; 'Mid woods coeval with the land they shade, And bright-wing'd birds in every sunny glade ; 'Mid lakes, whose deeps the plummet's search defy, And hills that hide their summits in the sky ; Where, to the wondering eye, a world appears Veil'd in the mystery of four thousand years ; I see thy children's children spread afar, And garner up thy arts of peace and war. — I turn to where Aurora leads the light ; What beauteous vision rises on the sight ! Loud sing the winds, and wild the waters roar, Luconia ! on thy far and fatal shore ; Where brave Magellan led his hardy band, And perished darkly by a savage hand ; The first who sailed round each discovered shore, And sealed a truth but darkly guessed before.^ Then, too, Columbus, of the mighty mind, Had left his sorrows and his fame behind/ 13 ^ 12 AUSTRALIA. Sunk to the tomb, with care and sickness spent, And made a second world his monument] While Science wept above each hallowed grave, And mourn'd her gallant wanderers of the wave ; Hope smiled to think they had not lived in vain, And Fancy built new regions in the main ; Far o'er the billowy waste she proudly trod, To track the wonders and the ways of Cod ; And, where the vast antarctic waters roll, She rear'd a continent against the Pole. Philosophy, in thought, would oft repair To theorize, and gather systems there ; And poets, in Utopian mood, would stray, Within its shades to dream an hour away : Imagination wandered o'er the land, And roamed its smiling vales and golden sand ; Gazed on its meadows, bright with summer gleams, And saw blue skies, that hung o'er bluer streams ; AUSTRALIA. 13 Hills, with their summits dipt in rosy hues, And blushing flowers impearled with balmy dews ; Hesperian groves that wore an endless spring, And birds of nameless beauty on the wing, Which flash'd such untold splendour on the eyes, As they had bathed in sunset for their dies, Or poured a flood of melody along, And wakened unknown echoes with their song ; While more than fragrance floated on the breeze, And far-off islets gemmed the sunny seas. — ( n) Till Learning, stamping Fancy's glowing cheat, And fixing form and limits to its seat, Gave to the " airy nothing" of a dream " A local habitation, and a name."( 15 ) Then sallied forth, across the southern main, To seek this " Golden Fleece," the sons of Spain ; Then o'er the line was Holland's flag displayed, And Lusitania launched on that crusade ; And o'er the waters floated far and free The pennon of the " rulers of the sea ;" 14 AUSTRALIA. Then Saavedra's crew explored the deep, Where tempests rock the cape-bom spirit's sleep ;(•*) Then Hartog led his hardy rovers forth ; And Tasman ventured boldly from the north ; While o'er the boundless billows gaily steer The party of the gallant buccaneer/ 1 ") That southern land defied their wishes still ; Yet not in vain their searching toil and skill : — Year after year, upon the surges thrown, The wandering sailors found some corner stone Of that stupendous whole, around whose shore The waters of three mighty oceans roar.( 18 ^ He comes at length ! the gallant master-mind, To rear the wondrous pile by fate designed, Achieve the glorious task which they began, And bind those scatter' d fragments in a plan. He comes ! on whom consenting planets smile, The dauntless hero of my native isle ; AUSTRALIA. 15 His manly spirit on his brow imprest, And all his country beating in his breast. Before his daring soul and piercing eye, Behold that polar vision darkly fly ! See, from its throne upon the waters, hurled The shapeless phantom of a southern world ! Then track the generous seaman on his way, Emerging upward to the realms of day, To win a substance from the billowy waste, And plant a new Columbia in the eastK 1 ^ Australia now demands the muse's strain ; — But oh ! she may not hint thy name in vain, Lamented Cook ! she turns to weep for thee, Where moan the dreary waves round Owhyhee. The sailor, as he nears that fatal isle, Leans o'er the deck, and checks his joyous smile, And almost thinks the gales go muffled by. And billows shape their music to a sigh : Or mounts, if waves be high, and winds pipe loud, And strains his eyes to see it from the shroud ; 16 AUSTRALIA. And, as the tempest rocks the Creeking mast, Half deems he hears thy whistle on the blast ; And wonders why his heart should own a fear; And brushes from his honest cheek a tear ; And leaves a blessing on the passing wave, Which chance may float above thy dismal grave. Turn we to view the wide arena, now, On which he won the laurel for his brow : Walk o'er the mighty field on which, so well, He reap'd the fruitful harvest, ere he fell ; Pursued his labours — bright as they were brief — And left the gleanings to a later chief. fco) Lo ! vast Notasia rises from the main, In all her mingling charms of mount and plain ; The flowery banks that crown her roving rills, And boundless wastes beyond her azure hills ; tn -^ The Protean thickets in her silent vales, And cedars waving to her mountain gales; AUSTRALIA. 17 Her rivers wandering in a trackless maze, And sunlight mimick'd in her hundred bays ; The ocean, like a girdle, round her rolled, With all its billows burnished into gold : — While at her feet adventure's younger child Sits, like a bud of beauty, in the wild.( 22 ) Here rears New Zealand 'mid a sea of storms/ 23 ^ Her hills that threaten heaven like Titan forms ; Where the long lizard on the herbage lies, And clouds of emerald beauty paint the skies ; Where the dark savage courts the burning noon, And counts his epochs by the hundredth moon : And yonder, redolent with fruits and flowers, With spicy gales, and aromatic showers, And shady palms that into mid-air run, To meet the winged creatures of the sun/- 4 ) Fair Papua calls upon the mourning muse To pause, and weep above the lost Peyrouse ; But vain her wailing — as the toil was vain That sought this second Hylas o'er the main S- 5 ) c 18 AUSTRALIA. Eastward she turns, where many an island smiles, Each like a chief amid its vassal isles :( 26 > Where lie the lands so often lost and found :(- 7 ^ And where, so long in circling silence bound/ 28 ) New Caledonia sits upon the seas That roll their waves amid the Cyclades :(' :,) > Far to the south, she sees the billows toss Upon their foam the sleeping Albatross, Till, rudely startled by their restless roar, He wanders, screaming, to his desart shore.( 30 > Australia in her varied forms expands, And opens to the sky her hundred lands, From where the day-beam paints the waters blue, Around the blessed islands of Arroo ; And life in all her myriad mouldings plays, Amid the beauty of the tropic blaze ; Where summer watches with undying eye, And equal day and night divide the sky ; Where the thron'd Phoebus wakens all the flowers, To do him homage in his own bright bowers ; AUSTRALIA. 19 And Cynthia, on her empyrean height, Holds crowded levee through the livelong night ; Where starlight is a gala of the skies, And sunset is a cloud-sketched paradise ; Away — away, to where the billows rave, Around the quenched volcano's echoing cave ;( 3l) Where she, the lonely beauty, sits and smiles/ 32 * In sweetness, like an orphan of the isles, Fair as fair Aphrodite on the deep, But lone as Ariadne on her steep : Away — away, to where the dolphins play, And the sea-lion tracks his pathless way : Away — away, where southern ice-bergs roll, Upon the troubled billows round the pole ; Where the bold mariner, whose course has run Beyond the journey of the circling sun, Condemned, for lingering months, to sleep and wake By nights that cloud not, days that never break, To watch by stars that fade not from the eye, And moons that have no rival in the sky, 20 AUSTRALIA. Lies down to slumber, and awakes to weep For brighter scenes that rose upon his sleep, And many a glance from faces far away, That turned the darkness into more than day ; Till his fond bosom glows with fancy's fires, And hope embodies all the heart desires, And every vision of his distant home Warms, like a prophecy of days to come. $ Isles of the orient — gardens of the east ! Thou giant secret of the liquid waste, Long ages in untrodden paths concealed, Or, but in glimpses faint and few revealed, Like some chimera of the ocean-caves, Some dark and sphinx-like riddle of the waves, Till he — the northern (Edipus — unfurled His venturous sail, and solved it to the world ! Surpassing beauty sits upon thy brow, But darkness veils thy all of time, save now ; AUSTRALIA. 21 Enshrouded in the shadows of the past, And secret in thy birth as is the blast/ 33 ) If, when the waters and the land were weighed, Thy vast foundations in the deep were laid; Or, 'mid the tempests of a thousand years, Where through the depths her shell the mermaid steers, Mysterious workmen wrought unseen at thee, And reared thee, like a Babel, in the sea S 3 ^ If Afric's dusky children sought the soil Which yields her fruits without the tiller's toil ; Or, southward wandering on his dubious way, Came to thy blooming shores the swarth Malay : Tis darkness all : — long years have o'er thee rolled, Their flight unnoted, and their tale untold : But beautiful thou art, as fancy deems The visioned regions of her sweetest dreams ; Fair as the Moslem, in his fervour, paints The promised vallies of his prophet's saints ; Bright with the brightness which the poet's eye Flings o'er the long-lost bowers of Araby ; — < 35; 22 AUSTRALIA. The soul of beauty haunts thy sunny glades ; The soul of music whispers through thy shades ; And nature, gazing on her loveliest plan, Sees all supremely excellent — but Man ! END OF THE FIRST TAUT. AUSTRALIA. PART II. How Heaven has scattered sweetness through the wild ! Here man alone is not a favoured child ; Here — like a new-born world — where all seems rife With boundless beauty bursting into life, Here — 'mid this clustering of all lovely things — Man, like a blot upon the pageant, springs, Dim, Merope! as thy unhappy star, Amid the vernal Pleiads, looks afar : Here, in these regions of the rising day, A savage race in mental darkness stray ; 24 AUSTRALIA. Not upward gazing, with the conscious glow Of heaven's high patent stamped upon their brow ; But coming like abortions to their birth, And darkening with their crimes the glorious earth, Shrink into pigmies in the fervid ray, Obscurely live, and darkly pass away. Here nature, when she reared her mighty plan, Sported with many things — but most with man ! fl > Gave him a mind to tower above the rest, But left it slumbering in a darkened breast ; Lavished her holiest treasures on his sight, But wrapt them in an intellectual night ; Flung beauty, like a pearl, before his eyes, But made him reckless of the precious prize ; And, while along creation music ran, She placed no echo in the heart of man ! Yet, on his forehead sits the seal sublime That marks him monarch of his lovely clime ; AUSTRALIA. ^O And in his torpid spirit lurk the seeds Of manly virtues and of lofty deeds ; Within that breast, where savage shadows roll, Philosophy discerns a noble soul, That, like the lamp within an eastern tomb, But looks more sickly 'mid surrounding gloom : Full many a feeling trembles through his frame, For which he never knew — or sought — a name ; And many a holy thought, but half supprest, Still lurks 'mid all the tempest of his breast ; Pants not his heart with human hopes and fears, And is he not the child of smiles and tears ? Tis love that links him to his native woods ; Proud beats his bosom while he breasts the floods ; And glory guides him — felt but undefined — To battle with the breakers and the wind, To tempt the torrent, or in arms to claim The savage splendour of a warrior's name. True, through their souls all fiercer passions run — These fiery ones — these children of the sun ! '26 AUSTRALIA. But gentler thoughts redeem the frenzied mood, Represt, but quenchless — hid, but unsubdued ; — Their's is the spell of home, where'er they rove ; The maiden loves with idl a maiden's love ; And the dark mother, as she rocks her boy. Feels, in her bosom, all a mother's joy ! Neglected children ! 'mid your curse of crime, Is nature shrineless in that beaming clime ? Has she no fane, beneath those burning skies, For feeling's throb — the spirit's sacrifice, The wish that murmurs, and the hope that cheers ; The grief that has no uttering but its tears ? Eternal essence ! yes — thy glory rests, Thy temples rise within a thousand breasts ; And there thy universal influence darts Its " still small " oracles through myriad hearts. Despite the mart of death, — the sport of life, Which mingles brothers in the mortal strife ; AUSTRALIA. 27 Despite the maddening shout and savage yell Of foes exulting o'er the foe who fell ; The raging " spirit of the first-born Cain"; The lurking treason skulking from the plain ; The horrid feast, where human flesh is food ; The burning thirst, whose dreadful draught is blood ! Oh ! could we walk amid their gentler hours, And read their fancies in their silent bowers ; Oh '. could we wander through their hearts, and hear The quiet music sweetly murmuring there, The unseen harp, whose tuneful chords are prest By every thought that steals along the breast, Discursive as the airy lyre, which sings To every breeze that wantons with its strings ; Oh! could we see them in each solitude, Their barks at sea — their dwellings in the wood ; The daughter weeping for her perished sire — The mother waiting, by her forest fire, For him, the lonely hunter, far away ; Or watching o'er her orphan, by its ray — 28 AUSTRALIA. The mourning- girl, reposing in the gloom Her love has fostered round her lover's tomb ; Bent o'er the sculptures of her untaught clime, Or wildly wailing in its ruder rhyme — Then might the bigot blush the doubts away That darkly hang round mercy's struggling day, And the proud child of Europe stretch his hand To clasp a brother on that distant land ! Yes ! the rude Negro is the partner still, In all the white man's strength for good or ill ; A form of darkness — and a soul of flame ! But all his passions and his powers the same ; The sport of feelings ardent as his zone, Where all creation takes an ardent tone ; Of fancies which as swiftly set and rise As day grows night along his own warm skies !(*•) For him, hope's pencil paints, with magic hue, The vistas which his spirit loves to view ; To /litii, the future dawns in blessed dreams, And seems all brightness — if it only scons : AUSTRALIA. 29 His, too, the softer light which memory's eye Steals — like the moon — from gayer beams gone by ; The images which hope has left behind, Lie, as a cherished treasure, in his mind ; Like legacies — the holiest and the last — Which dying joy bequeathed him ere it past ; And oft he fondly views them o'er and o'er, Like parting gifts of friends who meet no more : His is that vacant buoyancy of bliss Young spirits never feel but once : and his That dull and lingering leprosy of heart, Which has no Jordan — which will not depart ! Hail, hail, Australia ! — rising in the west, A beauteous star looks down upon thy breast ! Dim is its light upon the hesper sea, But lo ! it brightens as it steers to thee ; And all the lowering clouds that quenched its ray, Are sweetly purified and wept away ; Till now in unobstructed pomp it smiles, Spread, like a glory, o'er the eastern isles ! 30 AUSTRALIA. See where it beams, a promise-token given, Blest Bfl the bow that spanned the arch of heaven, When first its splendour rose upon the eye, And Noah watched it brightening through the sky '. Oh ! let me turn to trace that rising ray Which o'er Australia dawns a better day ! Look we once more upon Notasia's strand, And see its beauty break upon the land ! It is a summer eve ! — the gorgeous west Lights into flame the ocean's heaving breast ; The sun has rested from his march on high, But left his glowing banner in the sky ; And, far and wide, it flings its crimson fold O'er clouds that float in purple and in gold ; Or, piled around his rich pavilion lie, In thousand shapes to fancy's curious eye ; The very air is radiant with the glow ; The billows dance in liquid light below ; AUSTRALIA. 31 The splendours rest upon the woods of pine, And jewelled mountains in their brightness shine ;C 3 ) While earth sends flashing back the glory lent, In thousand colours, to the firmament ! The falcon pauses in his midway flight, And turns him eastward from the dazzling light ; Alono; the vallies strides the vast emu,( 4) And o'er the waters wanders the curlew ; The pelican, upon his dizzy steep, Looks proudly down along the glowing deep ; While herons spread their plumes o'er coral graves/ 5 ) Or fall, like snow-drifts, on the buoying waves. Far off, the white-winged eagle sails on high, And nestles half-way 'twixt the earth and sky, Above the archer's ken, and arrow's flight, Rocked on the Eucalyptus' towering height/ 6 ) Whose healing leaves weep balsam on the ground, And fling their sighs of fragrance all around. O'er many an inland lake, with swelling breast, And scarlet-painted beak, and golden crest, 32 AUSTRALIA, The mourning swan in dark-eyed beauty rides, Or laves his jetty plumage in the tides, Along whose banks resounds the far halloo Of tribes that chase the graceful kangaroo, Or lurk for vengeance in some covert way, And rush from ambush on their startled prey. In light canoes, along the purple seas, The natives sport, like swallows in the breeze ; Glide where the porpoise rocks himself to sleep, But shun the dolphin, where he stirs the deep ; Or lead the measured music of the oar Where the small billows break upon the shore, Flow to the beach, like joys that will not slay, Then ebb again, like happiness, away ! On land, some thread the dance, to tinkling shells ; Here, stretched in caves, they mutter o'er their spells ;(") And there, the murmur of their evening song In melancholy cadence dies along ;W AUSTRALIA. 33 Some throw the spear, with bold and skilful hand ; While others wander o'er the glittering sand, Gaze on that western paradise of clouds. And muse upon the mystery it shrouds !©> What lovely pageant bursts upon the eye, Where the bright waters wed the brighter sky ; Launched, like a phoenix, from the day-god's pyre, Where all the billows glow in sheeted fire ? What fairy form, beneath the magic gleam, Comes gliding o'er the surges like a dream ? What dauntless spirit walks upon the sea, And treads along the waves so gallantly ? From mouth to mouth the wondrous tidings reach, And eager hundreds hasten to the beach ; The rowers push their proas to the land/ 10 ) And join their gazing brethren on the strand ; And children climb the mountains, to behold The tale established which their sires have told/") D o4 AUSTRALIA. Onward it comes — that lovely thing of light ! And Bpreada its pinions through the gathering night; Bright ns that beauteous bird of rainbow dies, Which sleeps — their legends tell — in summer skies/ 1 *) Comes down, by day, to haunt Evodian vales/ 13 ) And floats to heaven on aromatic gales ! The sun is down ! — that crimson flush of light, From heaven and earth, has faded into night. The sun is down! — but. in his parting hour, The moon has caught the mantle of his power ; She smote the gathering darkness from her side, And lo! the shadows fly, the clouds divide ! The glancing stars come out along the sky, Like Israel's flock beneath their prophet's eye! The cedars brighten in the silvery light, And hang new stars along the brow of night! Delicious airs come wafted from the vales, Which echo songs like those of nightingales ; r "^ Rich with sweet basil, and with orange flowers, That keep their incense for the moonlight hours ! AUSTRALIA. 35 The Exocarpus, in the hallowing rays, Throws out its weeping boughs a hundred ways ; And Thesium groves and Melaleuca trees Load, with their fragrance, every passing breeze ! Calm o'er the deep, beneath the holy ray, That lonely vision wins its silent way ! A ship ! a ship ! — I see the swelling sails Fly, like white clouds, before the breathing gales! I see the waters dancing round her bow, The moonbeams flashing silvery from her prow ! How gracefully she cleaves the sparkling flood, And rides the billows like a winged god ! Bright o'er that darkened land, to fancy's eye, She rises like " the Day-Spring from on high !" Tis morn ! — she comes, " with healing on her wing," And more than music round her seems to sing ! O'er the glad surges glides the glory on, With all her streamers laughing in the sun ! 36 AUSTRALIA. — The anchor sounds the depths — the sails are furled ; My country's genius walks another world ! Tis Albion's oak that braves the austral blast, And Britain's banner flutters at her mast ! Beneath that banner, let me sit and dream. — Oh ! for a worthier barjL of such a theme ! Oh! for a glance in Banquo's magic glass/ 1 ' 1 ' To fix the crowding shadows, as they pass ! Oh ! for one hour of Mirza's fairy guide/ ,(5 > To point the moral which dim ages hide ! Now, on my soul the rising vision warms, But mingled in a thousand lovely forms ! Methinks I see Australian landscapes still, But softer beauty sits on every hill : I see bright meadows, decked in livelier green, The yellow corn-field, and the blossomed bean : A hundred flocks o'er smiling pastures roam, And hark! the music of the harvest-home! AUSTRALIA. 37 Methinks 1 hear the hammer's busy sound, The cheerful hum of human voices round ; The laughter, and the song that lightens toil, Sung in the language of my native isle ! In mighty bays unnumbered navies ride/ 1 "'* Or come and go upon the distant tide ; In land-locked harbours rest their giant forms, Or boldly launch upon the " Bay of storms :" While the swarth native crowns the glorious plan, In all the towering dignity of man ! The vision leads me on by many a stream ; And spreading cities crowd upon my dream, Where turrets darkly frown, and lofty spires Point to the stars, and sparkle in their fires ! Here Sydney gazes, from the mountain side/ 18 ) Narcissus-like, upon the glassy tide ! There Hobart stretches, where the Derwent sees Her yellow harvests tremble in the breeze K 1 ^ O'er rising towns Notasian commerce reigns, And temples crowd Tasmania's lovely plains ! 38 AUSTRALIA. And browsing goats without a keeper stray, Where the bush-ranger tracked the covert way ! The prospect varies in an endless range ; Villas and lawns go by, in ceaseless change :<") Glenfinlas ! thou hast hundred rival vales/—) Where quiet hamlets deck the sloping dales ; And, wafted on the gale from many a dell, Methinks I hear the village Sabbath bell ! And now the anthem swells ! — on every hand A cloud of incense gathers o'er the land ; Faith upward mounts, upon devotion's wino-s, And, like the lark, at heaven's pure portal sings ; From myriad tongues the song of praise is poured, And o'er them floats " the spirit of the Lord !" The vision widens! — northward brightly rolled, That spirit rests upon the " Isles of gold :"(*» Eastward, methinks! the beauteous veil expands, And smiles upon a hundred sea-bound lands : AUSTRALIA. 39 Far to the west it breaks the moral night, And all the islands slumber in its light : Up, np again, I trace the spreading glow, Till all the wide Pacific lies below : Far, far away from where its course began, I see it rouse thy empire, fierce Japan ! I see it fling its hallow'd beams around, \\ here once the cross was trampled on the ground :( 24 Westward, once more, it makes its shining road, And China worships at the name of God ; Down to the dust the priests of Brahma bow, And truth sits smiling on the shrines of Fo : Till, lo ! it brightens o'er its native earth, And burns above the cradle of its birth — Arabia basks beneath the blessed beam : — And Europe suns her in the glorious gleam : And Britain smiles upon her ocean-seat, While all the world is glowing at her feet; For, see ! the ray she fostered in her breast Has won its kindling way o'er east and west, 10 AUSTRALIA. And all the nations to its beauty sleep, As the vast waters fill the boundless deep!' '^ Again the vision changes! — o'er my souK^'- 1 Mysterious forms and giant shadows roll ! Vast spectres dimly flit across my mind, But vague and shapeless, dark and undefined ! Strange phantasies in whirling motion run, Till, lo ! they meet, and mingle into One — One mighty shade — in shrouding darkness furled, Wild as the chaos of an unborn world ! Till o'er the phantom gathering vapours roll, Then spread before me, like a written scroll ! And now, it stands revealed in sudden light, And all creation opens on my sight! Far to the east — where once Aurora's smiles Looked on an archipelago of isles ; And coral banks upreared their glittering forms, Like spots of azure in a sky of storms ; AUSTRALIA. 41 Where many a ship has sailed the foamy brine — Sits a vast continent upon the Line, Back from her strand assembled oceans rolls, And points, with either finger, to the poles ! — But where is Africa ? I seek in vain Her swarthy form along its native main : Methinks I hear a wailing in the wild, As of a mother weeping o'er her child ! Her fate lies buried in mysterious night, Where the wide waters of the globe unite ; And, where the moon walked nightly o'er her hills, The billows moan amid a hundred isles ! — I turn me from their knelling, with a sigh, To where a lovelier vision meets the eye ; Where spreads the British name from sun to sun, And all the nations of the earth are One ! X () T E S TO AUSTRALIA. NOTES TO PART I. Note 1, page 4, line 9. Home of the waters ! on thy sea-girt rock. " The ocean-Rome." — Lord Byron. Note 2, page 6, line 5. Where in the zenith smiles the polar star. At the pole the stars of the northern hemisphere, alone, are visible ; and the polar star is immediately over-head. Note 3, page 6, line 1 1 . Where faints the magnet mid the burning zone. As we approach the equator, the intensity of the magnetic quality gradually diminishes. » Note 4, page 6, line 13. Where glow the midnight leaves in liquid flame. See Mons. Pcron's description of the Pyrosoma, or fire- flies, in the tropical seas. — Voyage uux Terres Australes. 46 NOTES. Note 5, page 7, line 1 1 . Thou, who hast been, indeed, the pillared lit/lit. Exodus, chap. xiii. Note 6, page 8, line 6. The lyre whose song should lull him to repose. The statue of Memnon. Memnon was king of Ethiopia, and son of Tithonus and Aurora. He was slain by Achilles at the siiuc of Troy, whither he had gone with a l>out without sufficient data, at 14,000 feet. " Clouds are fr< quently observed of a green colour." " Tin; Datives have do other division of time than the revolution of the moon, until the aumber amounts to one hundred, which tin \ term ia-'ut V.'-tim- — that is, one Etow, or hundred moons." A like practice has been observed in the Pellew [stands : — but, indeed, it is so obvious a principle of compu- tation, thai it is, probably, in very general use in similar situations. Note -24, page 17, line 16. To meet the winged creatures of the sun, Papua is the immediate neighbour of the famous Spice islands, and a partner in their precious treasures. It is also the chosen home of the singular and beautiful birds of Para- dise ; which were once thought to have no legs, but to be always on the wing ; and were called ' Paxaros da sol,' ' Birds of the sun.' Note 25, page 17, lines 19 and 20. But vain her wailing — as the toil was rain That sought this second Ilylas o'er the main. It is supposed that the unfortunate La Peyrouse was com- pleting the discovery of the south-east part of this island, where it is conjectured to be joined to the Louisiad of Bougainville, when he perished. Admiral D'Entrecasteaux was afterwards sent out in quest of him. NOTES. 53 Note 26, page 18, lines 1 and 2. Eashvard she turns, where many an island smiles, Each like a chief amid its vassal isles. New Britain, New Ireland, and the neighbouring isles, consist, generally, of a centre island and numerous sur- rounding islets ; together with reefs in the various stages of their progress towards islets, most of them covered with beautiful verdure. Note 27, page 18, line 3. Where lie the lands so often lost and found. The Solomon Isles. These islands were first discovered in 1567 by Alonso de Mendana, who was sent on an expedition of discovery by the Viceroy of Peru. The inhabitants ornament their necks with little beads of gold, and the country is said to abound in that metal. The name was imposed upon these islands for the purpose of encouraging the belief that they were the same from whence Solomon procured the gold with which he adorned the temple at Jerusalem, and thereby inducing the Spaniards the more readily to go and settle there. However, on a second voyage for their discovery, Mendana could not find them. On this occasion, he fell in with Santa Cruz, now called Egmont Island ; where he died, and was succeeded by Quiros. The search for the Solomon Isles was, however, abandoned ; and they remained lost to Europeans for two centuries. They 54 NOTES. were again met with by Bougainville in 1768 ; by M. Surville in 1769, who named them 'the Archipelago of the Arsacides;' and by Lieutenant Shortland in 1788, who called them ' New Georgia.' They have regained the title originally given by Mnidana ; but scry little is still known of them. Note 28, page 18, line 4. And where, solouy in circling silence bound. New Caledonia was wholly unknown, till fallen in with by Cook, in 1774. Note 29, page 18, line 6. That roll their waves amid the Cyclades. The New Hebrides. Bougainville was the first who discovered that this land was not connected ; but composed of islands, which he called " the Great Cyclades." Note 30, page 18, line 10. lie ivanders, screaming, to his desart shore. Kerguelen's Land, or the Island of Desolation. Note 31, page 19, lines 5 and 6. Away — away, to where the billows rave Around the qucneh'd volcano's echoing cave. The Island of Amsterdam is the product of a volcanic NOTES. 55 eruption, scarcely yet cooled. The crater is towards the sea. This isle is in about 39° of south latitude. Note 32, page 19, line 7. Where she, the lonely beauty, sits and smiles. The Island of St. Paul — situate in the midst of the great Indian Ocean ; at the distance of 2000 miles from the nearest point of land, with the exception of the barren Isle of Amsterdam. This latter is separated from it by a distance of only eighteen or twenty miles, yet possesses no one point of resemblance. St. Paul is covered with frutescent plants. Note 33, page 21, line 2. And secret in thy birth as is the blast. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh." St. John, 3d chap. 8th verse. Note 34, page 21, lines 7 and 8. Mysterious workmen wrought, unseen, at thee, And reared thee, like a Babel, in the sea. See Preface. 56 NOTES. Note 35, page 21, lines 10 and 20. Bright with the brightness irhich the poet's eye Flings o'er the long-lost boiecrs of Araby. The most probable conjecture, as to the disputed site of the Garden of Eden, places it somewhere near that part of Arabia which i^ called ' Arabia Deserta.' Ilopkinson, Huet, Bochart, &c. fix its situation between the confluence of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris, and their separation. NOTES TO PART II. Note 1, page 24, lines 7 and 8. Here nature, when she reared her mighty plan, Sported with many things — but most with man. In Australia, nature, in her playfulness, has disappointed theories, and shown an utter disregard for received prejudices, even when supported by proverbs of 2000 years' standing '. — Witness that monstrous innovation upon the sanctity of old opinions, the black szcan ; which abounds in the lakes and rivers of New Holland : — witness also white eagles — crabs of an ultra-marine colour, of exquisite beauty — that singular insect, the walking leaf — green clouds — the Ornithoryncus Paradoxus, or Duck-bill'd Platypus ; " in which nature seems to delight in transgressing her usual law, the jaws of a quad- ruped being elongated into the complete bill of a bird " — a singular amphibious kind of fish, which leaps like a frog, by the help of strong breast-fins — fine rivers, which, after flowing immense distances, with great appearance of promise, are lost in vast and impassable marshes — and a hundred anomalies besides ; to the total confusion of all systems, and the utter discomfiture of natural philosophers. The Ornithoryncus 58 NOTES. Paradoxus is worse than the " Fleas and Lobsters." — It has been a sad puzzle to Sir Everard Home. Note 2, page 28, lines 15 and 1G. Of fancies, which as swiftly set and rise As day grows night along his own warm skies. In these climates they have no twilight. The setting of the sun is succeeded by immediate darkness. Note 3, page 31, line 2. And jewelled mountains in their brightness shine. " Evans passed whole mountains of fine blue limestone, and picked up topazes, crystals, and other pebbles." Suppl. to Encyc. Brit. Note 4, page 31, line 7. Along the tallies strides tin- rust emu. The cassowary. These gigantic animals are said often to exceed seven feet in height. Note 5, page 31, line 11. While herons spread their plumes o'er coral graves. The natives of New Holland make tombs of the rude coral rock ; which they sometimes adorn with sculptures. NOTES. 59 Note 6, page 31, line 16. Rocked on the Eucalyptus' towering height. " The mighty Eucalyptus, those giant trees of Australasian forests; many of which measure from 162 to 180 feet in height, and from 25 to 30, or even 36 feet, in circum- ference." — Piron, Voyage aux Terres Australes. The gum of the Eucalyptus is medicinal. Note 7, page 32, line 16. Here, stretched in caves, they mutter o'er their spells. The natives of the islands in the Pacific (particularly the New Zealanders) are the slaves of superstition, believing in magic, witchcraft, and ghosts ; and having spells against these, and against thunder and lightning. Note 8, page 32, lines 17 and 18. And there, the murmur of their evening song In melancholy cadence dies along. They have a song of cheerful adoration at sunrise, and a more mournful strain at sunset. They have, likewise, a, melancholy song to the moon. Note 9, page 33, lines 3 and 4. Gaze on that western paradise of clouds, And muse upon the mystery it shrouds. They believe that their deceased friends return to the clouds,- 60 NOTES. Note 10, page 33, line 1 5 The rowers push their /nod.- to the land. The proas are the native canoes. Note 11, page 33, lines 17 and 18. And children climb the mountains, t<> f>rhold The talc established Which their sires hare told. When Captain Cook visited these seas, the natives of some of the islands came over the hills from all parts of the country ; and hung, for days, on the heights, and along the shore, gazing on the ship; though many of them must have seen such a spectacle before. Note 12, page 34, lines 3 and 4. Bright as that beauteous bird of rainbow-dies, Which sleeps — their legends tell— in summer skies. They have a traditional belief that the Birds of Paradise come out of the skies. Note 13, page 34, line 5. Comes down, by day, to haunt Evodian rules. The Evodia is amongst the Fragrant shrubs of Australia The enumeration given by IYron of the plants which adorn these verdant islands is interesting, and his description NOTES. 61 picturesque. " Crowded on the surface of the soil, are seen, on every side, those beautiful Minosas, those superb Metrosideros, those Correas, unknown, till of late, to our country, but now become the pride of our shrubberies. From the shores of the ocean to the summits of the highest moun- tains, may be observed the mighty Eucalyptus, those giant trees of Australasian forests Banksia of different species, the Protea, the Embothria, the Leptosperma, form an enchanting belt round the skirts of the forests. Here, the Casuarina exhibits its beautiful form ; there, the elegant Exocarpus throws into a hundred different places its negligent branches. Every where spring up the most delightful thickets of Melaleuca, Thesium, Conchyum, Evodia — all equally inter- esting, either from their graceful shape, the lovely verdure of their foliage, the singularity of their corollas, or the form of their seed-vessels." — Voyage aux Terres Australes. Note 14, page 34, line 18. Which echo songs like (hose of nightingales. Torquemada — as quoted in Burney's account of discoveries in the South Sea. Note 15, page 36, line 7. Oh, for a glance in Banquo's magic glass ! Macbeth. 62 NOTl S. Note 10, page 36, line 9. Oli, for one hour of Mirza's fairy guide ! See the Spectator. Note 17. page 37, line 5. In mighty bays unnumbered navies ride. The whole earth cannot produce two such harbours as those of Porl Jackson and Dement Within the former of these ii all the navies of the world mighl ride in safety." Note 18, page 37, line 15. Here Sydney gazes, from the mountain side. Sydney is the capital of New South Wales. Note 19, page 37, lines 17 and 18. There Hobart stretches, where the Derwent sees I/,r yellow harvests tremble in the bra Hobart Town is the capital of Van Daman's Land ; and is situate on the western bank of the river Derwent, twelve miles from its entrance from the ' Great Storm Hay.' The flax- plant is cultivated, with success, on the hanks of this river. Note 20, page 38, line 2. Where the bush-ranger tracked the covert way. For an account of the ' Bush-rangers,' see the first child NOTES. 63 of the press of Australasia ! — a duodecimo, printed in Hobart Town, and entitled, " Michael Howe, the last and worst of the Bush-rangers of Van Dieman's Land." Note 21, page 38, lines 3 and 4. The prospect varies in an endless range ; Villas and lawns go by in ceaseless change. See Dyer's " Grongar Hill." Note 22, page 38, line 5. Glenfinlas ! thou hast hundred rival vales. For a description of the beautiful valley of Glenfinlas, see Oxley's narrative of an expedition to explore the courses of the rivers Macquarrie and Lachlan. Note 23, page 38, line 1G. That spirit rests upon the " Isles of Gold." Papua, or New Guinea. Saavedra, who first discovered this island, (sailing from Mexico, in 1528, by command of Cortez, to explore the Spice Islands,) gave it the name of ' Isla del Oro/ from an -idea that it abounded in gold — whence its present name of ' New Guinea.' It obtained its alias of ' Papua, ' from the inhabitants of its northern part, who are called ' Papous.' 64 NOTES. Note 24, page 39, line 8. Where once the cross tens trampled on l/ic (/round. In this powerful empire, the Jesuits — who had succeeded, to a considerable extent, in introducing Christianity— rendered it so odious, by their bad conduct, that a general massacre of Christians, amounting to 37,000, \\a> the result: and, since that time, the cross, and other symbols of Christianity, annually trampled under foot. Note 25, page 40, lines 1 and 2. And all the notions in its beauty sleep, As the cast waters Jill the boundless deep. " For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea." — Isaiah, chap. 11, verse 9. Note 26, page 40, line 3. Again the vision changes ! — \c See the Preface ; for an account of the theory alluded to in this and the following lines, to the end of the poem. MINOR POEMS. LINES WUITTEN ON QUITTING SOME FRIENDS, No! never shall mj soul forgot the friends I found so cordial-hearted ; Deai Mi. ill be the day we met, Ami dear shall be the night we parted. LINES WRITTEN ON QUITTING SOME FRIENDS. As one — who leaves some blessed isle, Where youth's unclouded hours were past; Where all around him wore a smile, Too bright, too rainbow-like, to last; Where beauty haunted every bower, And fragrance breathed from every flower ; And heaven shed a softer hue On all that slept beneath its blue : — Roams through each well-known sunny glade, And visits every leafy shade ; And sighs o'er every floweret's bell That fancy hallows with a spell ; 68 W KITTEN ON And strives to bid adieu, in vain, To all he ne'er may see again ; And, like a phantom, wanders still Through every vale, o'er every hill, In every grove, by every stream, Each blent with childhood's golden dream Long lingering, with u fond distress, To weep above their loveliness; And sighing, as remembrance brings The thousand thoughts upon its wings, That over all have sweetly thrown A milder magic of their own. While oft a tear, (and oh ! in heaven, That murmuring tear shall be forgiven ! ) Will from his heavy eye-lid start ; As fancy whispers to his heart, That summer suns shall brightly smili Upon his own beloved isle ; And flowers as fondly shall exhale Their incense to the nnssinc eale ; QUITTING SOME FRIENDS. 69 And violet vales and woodbine bowers Shall consecrate the moonlight hours ; And whispering streams still glide away, Beneath the calm and holy ray, Unerring as the path of duty, Yet graceful as the step of beauty, 'Mid blossomed banks and greenwood groves ; — When far from him the land he loves ; When, unto him, that witching scene Shall be — as though it ne'er had been ! 'Tis thus with me ! — in fond delav. I linger still, condemned to part ; And cannot rend the ties away That love has twined around my heart : And every dear and cherished form, That — as a sunbeam in the storm — Looks brightest in the parting day, Glides through my thoughts in sad array : And every look, and touch, and tone ; And every happy moment gone ; 7Q \\ KII'IKN Oh And all the bright and blessed hours That strewed my path of life with flowers, When daylight woke the heart to joy, And night flew, winged with music, by ; In long review, before me pass, Through memory's necromantic glass ; And seem — like ghosts that leave a blight Where'er they wander through the night To " come like shadows, so depart," And cast a chill upon my heart; And weave around my brain a spell, That drowns the struggling word — farewell ! That withering word must come at last ; But memory shall survive its power, And light, with visions of the past, The gloom of many a future hour : And, though I wander far away, Vet, whcresoe'er my feet may stray, Oh ! never, never from my heart The looks and tones it loved shall part. QUITTING SOME FRIENDS. 71 Oft will I turn from darkness nigh, To catch the smile of days gone by ; And hallow oft, in future years, Life's early dream with manhood's tears. And then, methinks ! with silent track, My thoughts shall oft go wandering back ; And glide around the dear recess, Built, as it were, for happiness : Where, through the clustering vines, the eye Looks out upon the moonlight sky ; When the night spirit steals to kiss The bower of silver clematis; And to the whispering air replies The jasmine, with its sweetest sighs ; When, on its wing, the voiceless breeze Brings fragrance from the orange-trees ; When the white beams of evening fall Along the darkly ivied wall ; 72 w III l TEN ON And his light web the spider weaves Imong the bright acacia leaves ; While, heard from some sequestered vale, Sinus to the stars the nightingale! But, brighter than that witching seem The little fairy world within ; Where happy hearts, and smiling eyes, Were the pure planets of our skies ; Where we had lips, whose every breath, More fragrant than the scented wreath From which the zephyr stole its kiss, Loaded the atmosphere with bliss ; And ringlets, in whose silken net Of shining brown, or raven jet, There lurked a far more subtle snare Than those the spider hangs in air ; And sounds on which the spirit hung, Till all unheard the night-bird sung; While friendship, blending every soul, Threw moonlight beauty o'er the whole ! QUITTING SOME FRIENDS. 73 Then oh ! how brightly thou wilt seem To mingle in that blessed dream ; Such as thou vvert in years of youth, With looks of light, and soul of truth ; The young, and mild, and snowy dove, That blessed that little ark of love ! When beauty with her zone had bound thee, And music seemed to breathe around thee; When the wrapt spirit fondly hung On every murmur of thy tongue, Or gazed, in calm and quiet joy, On the soft lustre of thine eye, Where dwelt a ray, too bright for sadness, Yet oh ! too holy far for gladness ; When o'er thy very faults was thrown Redeeming sweetness of their own ; — With soul too firmly proud to bend, Yet far too gentle to offend ; To smile at others' follies prone, Too honest to conceal thine own ; 7-1 Willi i IN ON In every weakness of thy heart Some virtue sweetly bore a part ; And every failing, in its' train, Brought something to redeem its stain ; Till even thy faults grew dear to me, I loved them — as a part of thee : For thou hadst none which truth would hide, Which goodness had not sanctified. Thou, too, shalt be remembered then, The guardian-angel of the scene ! Rich in the native untaught art To rear a shrine in every heart ! W i tli all the feelings of life's prime, But chastened and subdued by time : A spirit high — an ardent soul - But taught to brook thy mind's control ; As pure a love as ever blest The mansion of a stainless breast, Which sweetly flowed — as dew showers fall In common kindness towards all ; QUITTING SOME FRIENDS. 75 An eye of mild and holy light, Serenely glad, and calmly bright, — Yet fired, at times, with joyous gleams, Gay as an infant's happy dreams ! 'Twas thine, within thy magic bound, To scatter sunshine all around, Till every other face grew bright, And shone in thy emitted light : And as the moon, the livelong day, Drinks from the sun's eternal ray, Then wanders forth, in borrowed light, To shed a beauty o'er the night; So, from thy presence, every eye Grew radiant with reflected joy, And half we seemed to win from thee A portion of thy purity ! He, too, shall haunt that dreaming mood, The kind, the generous, and the good; The open heart and liberal hand, The genius of that fairy land ! 76 \\ KMIT..V ON Beneath whose fostering eye, arose That paradise of pure repoBi ' Who watcln 'I the little Eden spring I iid. i the shelter of his wing! Chartered, by nature, to dispense The hidden oracles of sense, And hang a new and living light Along a page where all was night : Whose eve explored, with steady ray, The darkness of a rugged way ; Till order out of chaos smiled, And beauty blossomed in the wild, And, at his country's feet, he placed The fruits he gathered from the waste! * • Tins gentleman — a barrister of the Inner Temple — is the intelligent author of a recent work on the neglected subject of copyholds : the value of which is be I denoted by the i-juvmess with which it is sought after; and the laboui ittending whose preparation can onl) be estimated bj those who have had the opportunity, like myself, of knowing it. QUITTING SOME FRIENDS. 77 Whose manly spirit, born to soar Wherever genius trod before, Loved still to stoop, in calmer hours, And taste those humbler, sweeter flowers, That in the noon-day blaze would fade, But yield their fragrance in the shade : Whose grasping mind could still unbend ; The husband — father — brother — friend ! "v\ ho, skilled in precedents and rules, Could leave the jargon of the schools; And owned no rule which would control The overflowings of the soul,- No precedent whose stern behest Would lock the floodgates of the breast ; Who loved, beyond the terms of art, The simple language of the heart; Still true to all life's softer ties, And nature's home-bred sympathies : — Oh ! memory will indeed be dim When she retains no trace of him ! (B WRITTEN ON Once more farewell ! — but think on one Whose steps through many a maze have run ; Whose follies wore the stamp of youth. Whose soul was still a soul of truth ; Who often erred — for oh ! his head Forever by his heart was Led, And reason's voice was vain, addrest Against the pleadings of his breast. — And vain its warnings must be still, His heart must lead him at its will ; And, though it take him far astray, Too oft, through many a flowery way, Yet, rather will he trust its soDg, Which never can beguile him long, Than shut it up within his breast, — A jewel in a worthless chest ! — To follow prudence as his guide ; Whose footstep will not turn aside. Though all the flowers of life lay dead Beneath the pressure of its tread ; QUITTING SOME FRIENDS. 79 Which may not pause, to give a sigh To all the sweets it wanders by ! No ! never shall his head control The honest beatings of his soul ; And ne'er, by him, shall be represt The gushing feelings of his breast! As rivers — which meandering glide Through many a fair and winding way, — Where'er their course may turn aside, Howe'er their roving waters stray, Still murmur till their home they gain, And flow, unerring, to the main : — My heart — though oft its restless tide Awhile may wander far and wide — 'Mid all its ramblinos, ne'er forgets The point to which its current sets ; But fondly tends, where'er it roves, In silent truth, to those it loves ! \\Kll I l.\ ON QUITTING SO Ml. FRIENDS. Be such the current of my lute; - Though now it hears nie far awa) From hopes, whose beauty, long and late, Shall haunt me on my devious way ! — Oh! may it lead through golden bowers, Through life-tracks gay with summer flowers ; \nd -- all my wanderings brightly past — May I flow calmly hack, at last! SERENADE. 'Tis love's own hour ! — for the gentle moon Has girdled herself in her silver zone ; And wandered forth, where the winds are still, To her shepherd's home on the dewy hill ; And the lily bows, with a sigh more sweet, Beneath the touch of the huntress' feet ! And the voiceless tale of the visionless breeze Is told, in sighs, to the jasmine trees; And the zephyr woos the lake to bliss, And kisses the stream with a lover's kiss ; And the stars look light on the deep-blue sea, Whose waves reflect it slumberingly ! G 82 SERENADE. And far in the quiet grove away, The night bird utters his lonely lay ; And viewless echo repeats the tale To his lady-love in her distant vale ; And the rose looks up, with a tearful eye, And lists to its music silently ! And the gossamer weaves, in the holy light, His scarce seen web, like a far delight ; A curtain hung 'twixt earth and sky, As fair and frail as a phantasy ! And myriad forms, in the moonbeam pale, Dance in the maze of the mystic veil ! And spirits are flitting on shadowless wings ; And sounds are all hushed into murmurings ; And each low gale, as it wanders by, Seems fraught with the breath of a young heart's sigh ; And beautiful things are all gliding about, And all that is fair — save the fairest — is out ! SERENADE. 83 Awake my love ! — 'tis love's own hour ! His spirit is breathed upon every flower; His oracles lie all around, In every sight, and on every sound ; And over heaven and earth is thrown A spell of beauty — like thine own ! MOONLIGHT. " We are such stuff As dreama -"ir" made of. " The moon is waking in the silent sky ! The single diamond on the brow of night — How beautiful the woods and valleys lie, Sleeping beneath her sad and softened light ! That light which finds its way into the heart, Like music — and awakens music there, Giving a joy no day-beam can impart. There is a holy stillness in the air, Almost like sadness ; and the yellow glow Gleams on the quiet sea, which sleeps below, Like the lulled babe beneath its mother's eye. MOONLIGHT. 85 The gales of evening are at rest ; and o'er The moonlit deep there wanders not a breath ; And all's so still upon the sea and shore, It looks almost like beauty hushed in death ; But that there is — despite its very sadness — A spirit and a sweetness in that ray, Which kindle in the soul a nameless gladness; — Like the soft witchery that flashes sway From the blue eye of pensive melancholy; — That beam, though pale, is beautiful and holy, And sheds a living charm on all beneath. The tide is stealing o'er the pebbled beach, In wavy silence, like the gentle tread Of her who fears the lightest sound should reach Her infant, slumbering on his cradle-bed; And scarcely does its ripple reach the ear, On this low eminence, whereon I stand To watch the little billows' gay career, Chasing each other on the yellow sand : — N<> .M00NL1GIII. Mark ! where they come, like hopes that mock our youth ! As bright in promise — but as frail in truth — Flow but to ebb — one kiss, and then are fled ! Tis all like magic ! — who would fear to ride O'er the lulled ocean in an hour like this ? Come, let us launch our shallop on the tide, And roam the pathless waters ! — Oh ! 'twere bliss Over the star-bright sea to sail away ; Where, haply, in our voyage we may meet Some little isle, beneath the silver ray, Where thus the moonlight is for ever sweet; Where clouds can never come to break the dream ; Till our wrapt souls, commingling with the beam, Shall take their flight to be — where beauty is ! Oh ! that our spirits, like the viewless wind, — Bursting the chains which link them to their clay — Might wander through the rather unconfined, Or mix their essence with yon kindred ray ! — MOONLIGHT. 87 Come ! let us roam the ocean, this still even, Now when the soul of beauty is abroad, And peace looks down upon the earth — from heaven, And the moon shines — the image of its God. Wilt thou not sail ? No, dearest, not to-night ; The tide is tranquil, and the sky is bright, But storms may frown upon the dawning day. Oh ! trust hot thou, my love ! to smiling skies ; — I do remember, when I was a boy, The sea of life looked calm before my eyes, And fancy's visions lighted it with joy ; And then — confiding in the dear deceit, 1 launch'd my bark upon that gilded wave — Smooth as the sea now slumbering at our feet, As bright the hopes and promises it gave : — They were all moonshine — and they passed away ; And soon the sweetness of that dreaming ray Gave place to life's unwelcome, cold realities ! THE MEETING AND PARTING. When in yon fading sky Summer light closes, And the lone spirit's sigh Steals o'er the roses ; When in the waters still Twilight is sleeping, And on the purple hill Night dews are weeping; Where o'er the slumbering lake Droops the fond willow, While the breeze cannot wake Even a billow ; When there is silence in each leafy bower, There be our meeting — alone — in (hat hour! THE MEETING AND PARTING. 89 - Oh ! let no cold eye Of others be o'er us ! Stillness be spread on high, Beauty before us ! Then, down thy lovely cheek Silently stealing', Should a warm tear speak The fullness of feeling, Fondly I'll chide, sweet! That symbol of sadness ; — Surely, when lovers meet, All should be gladness ! — Stay till, along the sky, daylight is darting, Then will we weep — 'tis our moment of parting ! ON SEEING A HARP HANGING IN A GARDEN, Willi Till STRINGS BROKEN. " Time, which antiquatea antiquities, and hath an art to make dust of all things, hath jrel spared these minor monuments." Sir Thomas Broune. " The soft affections, when they are l>ii>y that way, will build their structures, were it but on the paring of a nail." Man of reeling. Mute emblem of the broken heart! To thee my spirit fondly clings ; And memory — ruin as thou art — Haunts, like a ghost, thy shivered strings. Alike, o'er thee, may pass the breeze That steals along in summer gladness, Or utters through the leafless trees, At eve, the soul of sadness : — To summer's breath, or winter's sigh, Thy murmurs never more reply ! ON SEEING A HARP, &c. 91 There was a time — 'tis lona; a^o — When round thee music loved to linger, Or sweep thy chords in softened flow, Before the little fairy finger Of that remembered one, whose name On earth is but an echo now ! Though I have sunned me in the flame That brightened on her brow ; The pure, glad light, when hope beat high, That sparkled in her holy eye. When sadness hung upon its blue — Like clouds that steal o'er summer skies — The murmurs that from thee she drew, Oh ! they were music's very sighs ! But, in her gayer hours, thy strains Breathed like the notes to spirits given, To soothe them, after all their pains, From the soft harps of heaven ; With power to bid all sorrow cease. And win the bosom back to peace ! 92 ON SEEING A HARP, &c. Twas meet that, when the minstrel dud, The lyre she cherished should decay ; — And never have thy tones replied To touch, since that bereaving day. The voice that spoke along each string Of her pure spirit was a part, And every sound it used to fling An echo of her heart : That heart is gone — that spirit fled — And thou — art tuneless as the dead ! Her song — and oh, how sweet she sung ! - Is silent now in mortal ears : But memory, broken lyre ! has hung Round thee the thoughts of other years ; And made thee still a thing divine, — With many a tear thy chords bedewing Round which our feelings fondly twine, Like ivy round a ruin. There, in thy loneliness, thou art Fit emblem of a broken heart! SERENADE. " The sun is in the heaven ; and the proud day, Attended with the pleasures of the world, Is all too wanton, and too full of gawds, To give me audience." Kins John. Oh ! come in the hour when the daylight is gone. And the heavens weep dew on the flowers ; And the spirit of loneliness steals, with a moan, Through the shade of the eglantine bowers : When the moon is asleep on her pillow of clouds, And her curtain is drawn in the sky ; And the gale, as it wantons along the young buds, Falls faint on the ear, like a sigh. The summer-day sun is too gaudy and bright For a heart that has suffered like mine ; And methinks! there were pain, in the noon of its light, To a spirit so broken as thine : 94 SERENADE. The birds — as they mingled their music of joy — And the roses that smiled in the beam, Would but tell us of feelings for ever gone by, And of hopes that have passed like a dream ! And the moonlight — pale spirit — would speak of the time When we wandered beneath its soft gleam, Along the green meadows, when life was in prime, And worshipped its face in the stream : When our hopes were as sweet, and our life-path as bright, And as cloudless, to fancy's young eye, As the star-spangled course of that phantom of light. Along the blue depths of the sky ! Then come in that hour, love ! when twilight has hung Its shadowy mantle around ; And no sound, save the murmurs that breathe from thy tongue, Or thy footfall — scarce heard on the ground — SERENADE. 95 Comes over the silence, to waken a fear ; When the sun that is gone, with its heat, Has left on the cheek of all nature a tear ; — Then, hearts that are broken should meet ! HIE GONDOLA GLIDES. " Sic pctilur ca-lurn." U\ n.. " Ilow silver-sweet gonnd lovers' ton night!" Romt k mill Julli i . The gondola glides, Like a spirit of night. O'er the slumbering tides, In the calm moonlight: - The star of the north Shews her golden eye, But a brighter looks forth From yon lattice on high ! Her taper is out, And the silver beam Floats the maiden about, — Like a beautiful dream ! THE GONDOLA GLIDES. 97 And the beat of her heart Makes her tremble all o'er ; And she lists, with a start, To the dash of the oar. But the moments are past, And her fears are at rest, And her lover at last Holds her clasped to his breast ; And the planet above, And the quiet blue sea, Are pledged to his love, And his constancy. Her cheek is reclined On the home of his breast ; And his fingers are twined 'Mid her ringlets — which rest, In many a fold, O'er his arm, that is placed Round the cincture of gold Which encircles her waist ! ii 98 THE GONDOT-A GLIDES. He looks to the stars Which are gemming the blue, And devoutly he swears He will ever be true ; Then bends him to hear The low sound of her sigh, And kiss the fond tear From her beautiful eye. And he watches its flashes, Which brightly reveal What the long fringing lashes Would vainly conceal ; And reads — while he kneels All his ardour to speak — Her reply, as it steals In a blush o'er her cheek ! Till — won by the prayers Which so softly reprove — On his bosom, in tears, She half murmurs her love ; THE GONDOLA GLIDES. 99 And the stifled confession Enraptured he sips, 'Mid the breathings of passion, In dew from her lips ! ELLEN. I stood with Ellen, where the stream Flowed through a dark and lonely wild, Ungilded by one sunny gleam, And murmuring like a fretted child ; And, as I watched its rapid chase, I whispered that — unlike that river — Our love should have a smoother race, But — like its waters — flow for ever. A smile contended with a sigh, As o'er my arm she drooped her head ; I saw the trouble in her eye, — There's not a look'but love can read ELLEN. 101 A dew had dimmed her glance, which fell Where, broken from its fragile stem, One flower — it was an azure bell — Came floating down the turbid stream. She stooped to seize the blighted flower, And wreathed it in her raven hair ; And never till that blessed hour, Methought, had Ellen looked so fair ! A light was in her flashing eye, And on her cheek a deeper bloom ; Who would not wither, but to lie One hour, within as sweet a tomb ! The flow'ret drooped above her brow, Which the dark ringlets almost shaded ; And, bathing in her beauty's glow, The eye forgot its tint was faded. Oh ! how I watched, along her face, The silent blushes softly stealing, Which marked in sweetly mingling grace, The varying shades of some deep feeling ! 10S ELLEN. Gently she laid her hand on mine, And, with a faint and timid smile, Took the lone chaplet from its shrine ; — A tear was on her cheek the while — " Perchance," she said, " this bell has come, A weary way, from brighter bowers ; Where some glad valley was its home, And its yonng lot as blest as ours. " And, Henry ! even in decay, Say, is it not most sadly fair? And wouldst thou choose a wreath more gay, For love to twine in Ellen's hair ? Methinks that round its withering zone A wild and witching charm is hung; — As echo breathes a holier tone Than the sweet sounds from which it sprung ! " Thou knowest, our stream of life has strayed A summer course through springing flowers ; But we may quit the smiling glade, For darker scenes, in gloomier hour!? ; ELLEX. 103 Through clesart wastes our fate may flow, Dark as these rapid waters rave, And blighted hopes and feelings strow, Like withered flowers, its troubled wave. " Yet oh ! methinks — when, one by one, The blossoms of our youth have perished, And all the blessed buds are gone Which the young spirit vainly cherished — The heart will weep each ruined gem, As I this faded flow'ret now ; And memory save each broken stem, To twine a chaplet for her brow ! " She paused, while something unexprcst Looked through the cloud upon her cheek ; Full well I knew, her gentle breast Heaved with a fear she would not speak ! I took her to my beating heart. And kissed the sorrow from her mien ; - — Oh ! nought but sadness could impart The love with which I loved her then ! — 101 ELLIN. " My dark-eyed beauty ! time may ding- His waste and withering power o'er thee, But not one feather of his wine: Shall brush love's fond fidelity ; Thy form, amid its wreck of youth, Shall — like that wanderer of the river — Be treasured by eternal truth ; My blossom now — my dower for ever ! i »> YOU REMEMBER THE MAID, &c. But now will canker sorrow tat my bud, And chase the native beauty from his cheek, And he will look as hollow as a ghost, And dim and meagre as an ague's fit; And so Ite'W die." Constance. You remember the maid with her dark-brown hair, And her brow, where the finger of beauty Had written her name, and had stamped it there, Till it made adoration a duty ; And you have not forgot how we watched with delight Each charm — as a new one was given — Till she grew in our eyes to a vision of light, And we thought her a spirit from heaven ! 10() YOU REMEMBER HIE MAID, &c, And your heart can recal, and mine often goes buck, With a Bigh and a tear, to the hours When we gazed on her form, as she followed the track Of the butterfly's wing through the flowers ; When, in her young joy, she would smile with delight On its plumage of nm dyes ; Till she let it go free, and looked after its flight, To sec if it entered the skies ! But she wandered away from the home of her youth, One spring, ere the roses were blown ; For she fancied the world was a temple of truth, And she measured all hearts by her own : — ■ She fed on a vision, and lived on a dream, And she followed it over the wave ; And she sought — where the moon has u milder gleam — For a home ; and they gave her — a grave ! YOU REMEMBER THE MAID, &c. 107 There was one whom she loved, though she breathed it to none ; — For love of her soul was a part — And he said he loved her — but he left her alone, With the worm of despair on her heart. And oh ! with what anguish we counted, each day, The roses that died on her cheek ; And hung o'er her form, as it faded away, And wept for the beautiful wreck ! Yet her eye was as mild and as blue to the last, Though shadows stole over its beam ; And her smiles are remembered — since long they are past — Like the smiles we have seen in a dream ! And — it may be that fancy deludes with her spell, But — I think, though her tones were as clear, They were somewhat more soft, and their murmurings fell Like a dirge on the listening ear! 108 VOU REMEMBER THE MAID, fee. And, while sorrow threw round her a holier grace, — Though she always was gentle and kind — Yet, I thought that the softness which stole o'er her face, Had a softening power on her mind. But, it might be, her looks and her tones were more dear, And we valued them more, in decay, As we treasure the last lading flower of the year; — For we felt she was passing away ! — She never complained — but she loved to the last ; And the tear in her beautiful eye Often told that her thoughts were gone back to the past, And the youth who had left her to die. — But mercy came down, and the maid is at rest, Where the willows wave o'er her at even ; With the turf of a far-foreign land on her breast, Whence the palm-tree points upward to heaven! STANZAS FOR MUSIC. How sadly sweet the moonlight hour, when, from their shrines on high, The stars, like angel forms, look out along an azure sky ; When not a cloud in heaven throws its shadow o'er the deep, And gentlest zephyrs only breathe to lull the wave to sleep ; When earth, and air, and ocean smile beneath the holy gleam, Like some bright scene the spirit loves to picture in a dream ; And dew-drops hang on every flower, till, in the blessed ray, They seem like eyes from which all clouds are sweetly wept away ! 110 STANZAS FOR MUSIC. Then memory's lingering- visions sink more softly on the soul, And sorrow sighs herself away beneath their mild control ; And hearts that o'er their fading joys too long have darkly pined, Grow bright again, as o'er them steals a moonlight of the mind ; While hope, beneath its ray, once more, takes up her soothing tune, Like that lone bird who utters all his music to the moon ; And peace, which like the dove had flown before life's waters dark, Returns to plume her snowy wings within her nativi ark ! STANZAS TO " Affliction had touched her looks with something that was scarce earthly." Sterne. The rose that decked thy cheek is dead, The ruby from thy lip has fled, Thy brow has lost its gladness ; And the pure smiles that used to play So brightly there, have passed away Before the touch of sadness. Yet sorrow's shadows o'er thy face Have wandered with a mellowing grace. 1 12 STANZAS TO And grief has given to thine eye A beauty, such as yonder sky Receives, when daylight's splendour Fades in the holy twilight hour, Whose magic hangs on every flower A bloom more pure and tender ; When angels walk the cmiet even, On messages of love from heaven. Thy low sweet voice, in every word, Breathes — like soft music far-off heard — The soul of melancholy ; And oh ! to listen to thy sigh ! The evening gale that wanders by The rose is not so holy ; But none may know the thoughts that rest In the deep silence of thy breast. For oh ! thou art, to mortal eyes, Like some pure spirit of the skies, STANZAS TO 1 13 Awhile to bless us given ; And sadly pining for the day, To spread thy wings, and flee away, Back to thy native heaven : — Thou wert beloved by all before, But now — a thing that we adore ! MY SISTER'S GRAVE. " Vale, vale, — no» (c, online quo natura pcrmittet, sequcmur." The noon-day sun is riding high, Along the calm and cloudless sky ; The mantle of its gorgeous glow Floats sleepily o'er all below ; And heaven and earth are brightly gay Beneath the universal ray : — But not a wandering sunbeam falls Within these high and hallowed walls, Which echo back my lonely tread, Like solemn answers from the dead ; — The murmurs steal along the nave, And die above — my sister's grave ! MY SISTER'S GRAVE. 115 Tis evening — still I linger here; Yet sorrow speaks not in a tear ! The silence is so sadly deep, The place so pure, I dare not weep : I sit as in a shapeless dream, Where all is changing, save its theme ; And, if a sigh will sometimes heave A heart that loves, but may not grieve, It seems as though the spirits round Sent back reproachfully the sound ; And then I start — and think I have A chiding from my sister's grave ! The feeling is a nameless one With which I sit upon thy stone, And read the tale I dare not breathe Of blighted hope that sleeps beneath. A simple tablet bears above Brief record of a father's love, And hints, in language yet more brief, The story of a father's grief: 11(3 MY SISTER'S GRAVE. Around, the night-breeze sadly plays With scutcheons of the elder days; And faded banners dimly wave, On high — right o'er my sister's grave! Lost spirit ! — thine was not a breast To struggle vainly after rest ; Thou wert not made to bear the strife, Nor labour through the storms of life ; Thy heart was in too warm a mould To mingle with the dull and cold ; And every thought that wronged thy truth Fell like a blight upon thy youth : — Thou shouldst have been, for thy distress, Less pure, and oh! more passionless; For sorrow's wasting mildew gave Thy beauty to my sister's grave. But all thy griefs, my girl ! are o'er, — Thv fair-blue eyes shall weep no more ; xMY SISTER'S GRAVE. 117 Tis sweet to know thy fragile form Lies safe from every future storm : Oft as I haunt the dreary gloom That gathers round thy peaceful tomb, I love to see the lightning stream Along thy stone, with fitful gleam, To fancy in each flash are given Thy spirit's visitings from heaven ; — And smile — to hear the tempest rave Above my sister's quiet grave ! WRITTEN UNDER A SPRIG OF HEATHER AND HAREBELL. My native clime ! along thy shore The clansman's song is heard no more ; No more the pibroch glads the gale, Nor wandering harper cheers the vale ; No more do warriors' visioned forms Ride forth upon the " hills of storms ; " No chieftain raises to the sky The gladness of his battle-cry ; Nor minstrel's lofty numbers swell Above the brave, who fought — and fell ! — ON A SPRIG OF HEATHER AND HAREBELL. 1 1 9 Unmarked the grey-stone rears its head Above each hero's mountain-bed ; Unheard by all the thistle's sigh, As the lone spirit wanders by ; Hushed is the music of thy dells, And silent now the feast of shells ; And — like a thought — has passed away The magic of thine early day ! — Yet, there — like hearts that love thee still The heather hangs upon each hill, And blooms along thy hardy braes As brightly as in better days ; Like valour rears its purple crest Above thy lorn and widowed breast : And there — like beauty's glances seen — The blue-eyed harebell springs between : — Still faithful 'mid the wrecks of time, Twin children of my native clime ! HEBREW MELODY. We sat by Babel's waters ; and our tears Mingled, in silence, with the silent stream ; For oh ! our hearts went back to happier years, And brighter scenes, that faded like a dream. Our harps, neglected, hung upon the trees That threw their shadows o'er the wave's dark rest, And sighed, responsive to each passing breeze That stirred a ripple on its slumbering breast. But they who led us captive touched the string, And waked its music with unhallowed hand, And — mocking all our sadness — bade us sing The song of Zion in a foreign land ! HEBREW MELODY. 121 Oh ! never, never ! — hushed be now its strains ! Far, far away her exiled children roam, And never will they sound, on other plains, The holy music of their native home ! Jerusalem ! all ruined as thou art, Thy temples by profaning footsteps trod, Still art thou fondly cherished in each heart, — Land of our sires, our childhood, and our God ! And, while we wander from thy sheltering wing, To lay on distant shores the weary head, Like houseless doves — alas ! how can we sing ? — Our harps are tuneless, and our souls are sad ! FAIR ELLEN ! HUSH, &c. Fair Ellen! hush — where'er I stray, My spirit never shall repine, While it has power to chase away The shadows, dear', from thine. My soul has weathered storms, above The strength of feeble minds to bear ; But may not see the brow I love Dimmed with affliction's tear. 'Tis bliss enough for me, to rest Beneath the ray of that blue eye ; Or, pillowed on thy gentle breast, To echo back its sigh. FAIR ELLEN! HUSH, &c. 123 But oh ! that eye must not be wet With aught that speaks the touch of sorrow ; Nor must the murmur of regret Thy sigh's soft music borrow. Oh ! may thy looks be ever bright With that sweet smile which peace discloses, And o'er the young cheek sheds its light, Like sunbeams upon roses ! And may thy sighs — if sighs e'er start — Light as the wings to seraphs given, Come from the heaven of thy heart, To waft the heart to heaven ! STANZAS FOR MUSIC. If to-morrow may dawn on a stormy day, If the smile in pleasure's eyes By the cloud of despair may be chased away, Like the visions of summer skies ; If joy be a vanishing beam at best, Like the lights o'er northern seas ; Oh ! where is the heart that would coldly waste The sunshine of moments like these ? Then fill, fill high the sparkling glass, And crown the moments as they pass ! If bliss be a frail and perishing flower, Born only to decay, Oh! who — when it blooms but a single hour Would fling its sweets atfay ? STANZAS FOR MUSIC. 125 When storms are abroad, and the world is dark, And wrecks strew life's abyss, Oh ! who would not anchor his weary bark In the calm of a port like this ? Then, though round about us life's tempests roll, We'll cling to our moorings — the bottle and bowl ! When lovers are false, and friends unkind, And the lights of life are flown, Remember that here we still can find A bright little world of our own ; Whose sun is a sun that beams all night, In the hearts that round us shine ; And its stars are the eyes that fling their light O'er waves of rosy wine ! Be our's the sun that shines all night, And the blushing wave that reflects its light ! If hope, when she spreads her gossamer sail Along life's billowy waste, Is sure to be tossed by misfortune's gale, And to perish at length in the blast ; 126 STANZAS FOR MUSIC. Let us launch her, at once, on this purple tide, Where her vessel can always float ; While mirth's gay streamers flow far and wide Around her gilded boat ! O'er seas of wine when hope is afloat, Our's are the spirits to ballast her boat! Fill high the glass ! this night is ours ; The dew of social feeling Falls on each heart, its brightest flowers And warmest hues revealing : Then weave them into a chaplet bright, Our happy brows to shade ; And live on the perfumed wreath to-night; — Ah ! think how soon 'twill fade ! To-night, to-night the garland twine, And mingle there the laughing vine ! WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM. Peace sit on thy young spirit : — never rest On thee the phantom sorrow : — may thy brow Pass — like an ark — along life's stormy waste, As stainless and as beautiful as now ; Still buoyant on the waves, with all its store Of thoughts and feelings treasured from the past : And, if thy breast shall ever sigh for more, And hope go forth, thy envoy, on the blast, Oh ! may the dove as oft return, and bring The olive-branch beneath her snowy wing ! Tis long since we have met — long years, though few For we are in that blessed time of youth When fancy sinks along the heart, like dew, And the world has not withered up its truth ; 128 WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM. When years are but as moments, — yet we crowd In one short moment, passions, hopes, and fears, Which haunt the spirit, ere its powers are bowed, And make brief minutes worth long after-years, And years worth immortalities, — when life Sleeps, cold and passionless, from feeling's strife : When o'er the surface of our days is thrown A blank repose — a weariness of rest — Fullness of void ; — and memory walks alone, Amid the ruins of the wasted breast, O'er many a blighted track where shapes have been, — Those fleeting shapes that, in the years of youth, — Like fairy elves that haunt the freshest green — Rise brightly up, and take the form of truth, Dance, in their magic rings, around the heart, And leave its blossoms withered, when they part. * * In the days of England's lost and beautiful mythology, it was a common belief that those withered rings, which are frequently observed on the grass, had been the scenes of the moonlight revels of fairies. WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM. 129 Or, worse than all — when fancy's early dreams Have mingled into one ; which, not the less, Haunts the lorn soul, though shorn of all its beams; — One Titan thought — one passionate distress — One overwhelming Upas of the mind — Immortal pest ! beneath whose mortal shade Lie withered hopes and feelings intertwined — Sole monarch of the desart it has made — Infecting, with its breath, life's wholesome air, And darkening all things to a black despair ! Tis years since we have met — those precious years Which make days, ages ; and old friends in youth : And now we meet again ; — and smiles and tears, Since last we met, have done their work on both : But time, that hath been busy on my way, Hath passed thee lightly : — still, methinks ! thine eye Is darker than it was, and yields a ray Too bright for sorrow, yet too sad for joy ; — K 130 WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM. A chastened light — a look which seems to own That thou hast battled with the world — and won ! Friend of forgotten days ! — of days that give No record, save in gentle hearts, like thine ! Thy form is of the cherished things that live, Canonized in the soul, as in a shrine ; And while, before thine altar, fancy pours The votive firstlings of her early years, If sadness be the priestess, in the hours Of loneliness — the worship is not tears — The dark-eyed vestal thou wilt not despise, — Fit votaress for so pure a sacrifice ! How beautiful it is — the bright blue sky — When eve puts on her coronal of light, And looks, in gladness, from her throne on high, O'er southern seas — the mirrors of the night — WRITTEN IN A YOUNG LADY'S ALBUM. 131 Where zephyrs have no power to curl the deep, But soothe it into slumber! — -lovelier far To gaze upon the lustres, where they sleep Below — each like the memory of a star — Glancing, like phantoms, through their watery veil ; A visioned heaven — dreamy, dim, and pale ! WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. How vain to blot this snowy leaf With human hope, or human fear ! Mow vain to leave, of joy or grief, A single record here ! — And yet, the very lightest dream That e'er was fancy's cherished theme, The frailest hope that ever played, The fleetest thought that ever strayed, — Arrested in its flight — May live upon this page — alone, The brightest trace — the only one — Of him who felt its light; When all his world of hopes and fears Is mingled with the flood of years. WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. 133 Full many a heart, by friendship tried, Has left an offering on this shrine ; And names that love has sanctified Along its pages shine : — Yet fancy pauses, with a tear, Above the little register, To think that all those hearts have known A host of feelings of their own, Which are not written here ; The transient smile — the frequent sigh — The blighted hope — the mingled joy — These have no chronicler ; The wish that warms — the dreams that fade — Rest, unrecorded, in the shade ! How brief the tale this book can give — Its painting of expression caught i It can but make one feeling live, Or fix one passing thought, 134 WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. Of all which wander, or which rest In the deep silence of the breast. — As stars that deck the dark-blue sky Beam, lonely, on the naked eye; Yet each is but the sign Of systems far from human sight, Which — with their floods of living light — In countless numbers shine ; Of orbs and peopled worlds, which lie Scattered throughout immensity. A few short years ! — and, through the dark, Each tribute may remain alone, Like lonely signal-lights, to mark A world of feelings gone ! — 'Tis sad to think, this leaf may be The sole memorial left of me ! But, oh ! should friendship interfere, And, 'mid the wrecks of many a year, WRITTEN IN AN ALBUM. 135 Preserve some relics green ; — May every record love shall save From passing time's o'erwhelming wave, To tell that I have been, And give me to a future age, — Be written on as pure a page ! Ill 1111 MEMORY OF A YOUNG LADY, WHO DIED ABROAD. SI qihraTn xjti£, 4>iXTaTov Si /txoi cro/txa, xai s-p^n/xa, xai 7rp35"a)7rov EtyEVEf Ex rip. Medea. " I uou art gone ! thy genius fled up to the stars, from whence il came ! .iikI that warm heart of thine, with all its generous and open vessels, compressed into a clod of the valley." Sterne. Far, far away — the zephyrs wave, In silence, o'er thy lonely grave ! No kindred sigh disturbs the gloom That midnight hangs around thy tomb But spirits of a foreign air, At evening, love to linger there ; TO THE MEMORY, &c. 137 And roses of another shore, Blooming, where thou shalt bloom no more, Shed sweetness o'er the quiet spot Where thou liest low — but not forgot ; While moonbeams of a distant sky Watch o'er it — like a mother's eye ! The spot is holy, — and it seems Like to some shadowy land of dreams ! For, never does a single sound Break on the calm that hovers round : Save when the lone bird, warbling ni°h, Complains unto the silent sky ; Or the sad cypress waves its head, In murmurs, o'er thy narrow bed ; Or — while the gales are all at rest, Far ofFupon the billows' breast — The flow of yonder distant stream Comes on the stillness, as a dream ; 138 TO THE MEMORY Whose music — like a thought of thee — Tunes all the heart to melody, And steals upon the calm around, Almost the shadow of a sound ! It seems as peace had built her nest Above thy hallowed place of rest ; As though no footstep might intrude Upon that sacred solitude ; Nor human feeling dare to come, To mock the silence of thy tomb ! — And thou art nothing — but a thought? A form by fancy's magic wrought — A rainbow, softly lingering yet, Reflected from a sun that's set, Painted in memory's softest die - A shadow of a joy gone by — A spell — a very phantasy — OF A YOUNG LADY. 139 A vision, clinging to the heart — A dream that haunts, and will not part? Anna! methinks I see thee yet, The roses on thy cheek all wet : I see thy form, as last it stood Upon the brink of ocean's flood ; Thine eye, that glistened through a tear ; Thy voice still lingers on mine ear, Like the low wailing of a knell, Striving, in vain, to say — farewell ! (Oh, that such blighting word should move A murmur on the lips we love ! ) I feel the pressure of thy hand — — Thy heart was in it — on the sand, That weary day when we two parted, And I was left half broken-hearted : — Yes ! when that parting hour was past, My heart foretold it was the last ; 140 TO THE MEMORY And when our hands were forced to sever, I knew, I felt — it was for ever ! It was for ever ! — years of pain Have passed ; — we have not met again ; - Nor ever shall : — but oft in hours When melancholy weaves her powers, My thoughts go o'er the severing sea, And wander far in search of thee; Oft, w r hen the whispering winds repine, My spirit, Anna! is with thine; Oft, in the dim and noiseless night, We meet beneath the pale moonlight; And oft, when winter torrents rave, I am with thee, in thy cold grave ! And oh ! ere many years be past, — And they arc fleeting sad and fast — I trust it may be yet my lot To bend above the lonely spot, OF A YOUNG LADY. 141 Which fancy's sweetly soothing art Has often painted to my heart ; To hear the night-bird carol, there, Thy dirge unto the silent air ; To kiss the wild-flowers which have shed Their fragrance o'er thy lowly bed ; And, sitting in the cypress gloom, To weave a garland for thy tomb ! THE COWUT SHIl'. Mohn on the waters ! — and, purple and bright, Bursts on the billows the flushing of light ! O'er the glad waves, like a child of the sun, See the tall vessel goes gallantly on ; Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail, And her pennant streams onward, like hope, in the gale! The winds come around her, in murmur and song, And the surges rejoice, as they bear her along ! See ! she looks up to the golden-edged clouds, And the sailor sings gaily, aloft in the shrouds ; Onward she glides, amid ripple and spray, Over the waters — away, and away ! Bright as the visions of youth, ere they part, Passing away, like a dream of the heart ! THE CONVICT SHIP. 143 Who, — as the beautiful pageant goes by, Music around her, and sunshine on high, — Pauses to think, amid glitter and glow, Oh ! there be hearts that are breaking below ? Night on the waves ! — and the moon is on high, Hung, like a gem, on the brow of the sky ; Treading its depths, in the power of her might, And turning the clouds, as they pass her, to light ! Look to the waters ! — asleep on their breast, Seems not the ship like an island of rest ? Bright and alone on the shadowy main, Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain ! Who, — as she smiles in the silvery light, Spreading her wings on the bosom of night, Alone on the deep — as the moon in the sky — A phantom of beauty ! — could deem, with a sigh, That so lovely a thing is the mansion of sin, And souls that are smitten lie bursting within ? Who, — as he watches her silently gliding, — Remembers that wave after wave is dividing 14-1 THE CON\ Ml sill I' Bosoms that sorrow and guilt could not sever, Hearts that are parted and broken for ever ? Or deems that he watches, afloat on the wave, The death-bed of hope, or the young spirit's gra\< .' 'Tis thus with our life, while it passes along, Like a vessel at sea, amid sunshine and song ! Gaily we glide, in the gaze of the world, With streamers afloat, and with canvass unfurled ; All gladness and glory to wandering eyes, Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs : — Fading and false is the aspect it wears, As the smiles we put on — just to cover our tears ; And the withering thoughts which the world cannot know, Like heart-broken exiles, lie burning below ; While the vessel drives on to that desolate shore Where the dreams of our childhood are vanished and o'er! Note— This poem originally appeared in the Literary Sou- venir, edited by Mr. Watts, and published by Messrs. Hurst, Robinson and Co. TO MYRA. I leave thee now, my spirit's love! All bright in youth's unclouded light ; With sunshine round, and hope above, Thou scarce hast learned to dream of night. Yet night will come — thy bounding heart Must watch its idols melt away ; And, oh ! thy soul must learn to part With much that made thy childhood gay. But should we meet in darker years, When clouds have gathered round thy brow,- How far more precious in thy tears, Than in thy glow of gladness now ! — L U6 TO MYl: \. Then come to me — thy wounded heart Shall find it has a haven still, One bosom, — faithless as thou art, — All. all thine own, 'mid good and ill ' Thou leavest me for the world — then go ! Thou art too young to feel it yet, But time may teach thy heart to know The worth of those who ne'er forget. And, should that world look dark and cold. Then turn to him whose silent truth Will still love on, when worn and old, The form it loved so well in youth. Like that young bird that left its nest, Lured, by the warm and sunny sky. From flower to flower, — but found no rest, And sought its native vale to die ; TO MYRA. 147 Go leave my soul to pine alone, But should the hopes that woo thee, wither, Return, my own beloved one ! And let— oh ! let us die together ! I AM ALL ALONE, &c. I am all alone ! — and the visions that play Round life's young days have passed away ; And the songs are hushed that gladness sings, And the hopes that I cherished have made them wings And the light of my heart is dimmed and gone, And I sit in my sorrow — and all alone ! And the forms which I fondly loved are flown, And friends have departed — one by one ; — And Memory sits, whole lonely hours, And weaves her wreath of hope's faded flowers ; And weeps o'er the chaplet, when no one is near To gaze on her grief, or to chide her tear. And the home of my childhood is distant far, And I walk in a land where strangers are ; I AM ALL ALOXE. \49 And the looks that I meet, and the sounds that 1 hear Are not light to my spirit, nor song to my ear ; And sunshine is round me, which I cannot see, And eyes that beam kindness — but not for me ! And the song goes round, and the glowing smile, But I am desolate all the while ; And faces are bright, and bosoms glad, And nothing, I think, but my heart, is sad ; And I seem like a blight in a region of bloom, While I dwell in my own little circle of gloom. I wander about, like a shadow of pain, With a worm in my breast, and a spell on my brain ; And I list, with a start, to the gushing of gladness, — Oh ! how it grates on a bosom all sadness ! — So I turn from a world where I never was known, To sit in my sorrow, — and all alone ! SOXG. Adieu, adieu ! — our dream of love Was far too sweet to linger long, Such hopes may bloom in bowers above, Hut here, they mock the fond and young. We met in hope — we part in tears — Yet oh ! 'tis sadly sweet to know That life, in all its future years, Can reach us with no heavier blow. Our souls have drunk, in early youth. The bitter dregs of earthly ill, Our bosoms, blighted in their growth, Have learned to suffer — and be still. SONG. 151 The hour is come — the speli is past — Far, far from thee, — my only love ! Youth's earliest hope, and manhood's last — ■ My bursting spirit turns to rove. Adieu, adieu ! — oh ! dull and dread, Sinks on the ear that parting knell ; Hope, and the dreams of hope, lie dead, — To them and thee, farewell — farewell ! TO ELLEN. i Dry up thy tears, love ! — I fain would be gay ; ^ing me the song of my early day ; Give me the music, so witchingly wild, That solaced my sorrows when I was a child ; Years have gone by me both lonely and long, Since my spirit was soothed by thy voice in that song Years have gone by ! — and life's lowlands are past, And I stand on the hill which I sighed for, at last; But I turn from the summit which once was my star, To the vale of my childhood seen dimly and far ; Each blight on its beauty seems softened and gone, Like a land that we love in the light of the moon. TO ELLEN. 153 There are the flowers that have withered away, And the hopes that have faded — like fairies at play, And the eyes that are dimmed, and the smiles that are gone, And thou too art there ! — but thou still art mine own, Fair as in childhood, and fond as in youth, Thou — only thou — wert a spirit of truth ! Time hath been o'er thee, and darkened thine eye, And thoughts are within thee more holy and high ; Sadder thy smile than in days that are o'er, And lovelier all that was lovely before ; That which thou wert is not that which thou art, Thou too art altered in all — but in heart ! Lie on my bosom, and lead me along Over lost scenes, by the magic of song ! What if I weep at the vision of years ? Sighs are not sorrow — and joy has her tears ! Sad is my brow — as thy music is sad, — But oh ! it is long since my heart was so glad. 15 1 rO ELLEN. All that is left of life's promise is here, — Thou my young idol, in sorrow more dear; But thy murmurs remind me of many away, And though I am glad, love ! I cannot be gay : — All has departed that offered like truth, Save thou — only thou — and the song of my youth TO A FRIEND. Oh ! the glad days when life was in its spring, And every wish was furnished with a wing ; When smiling eyes betokened smiling hearts, As sunshine is the brightness it imparts; When truth and gladness gathered flowers together, And duty plumed her wing with pleasure's feather ; When, if to-day was chequered by a sorrow, It could not fling one cloud upon to-morrow ; And the young soul but brightened from its showers, As dew draws holier incense from the flowers ; Ere hope had mocked us, or the cloud of pain Had left its withering shadow on the brain ; Ere yet the spirit grieved, to see depart Those hues which were a rainbow to the heart ; 156 rO A FRIEND. Ere thou hadst worn the smile that speaks of sadness, Or I the mask of mirth — when mirth is madness ! Those days are gone — as beautiful as brief — Vuin as the vain complaint that blots this leaf; The world — the world its baneful blight has shed O'er all the flowers hope reared— till hope lay dead ; And many a bitter pang of vain regret Hath burnt my breast and brain since last we met. I walk as one who wanders in a dream, Through scenes where beauty smiles — but not for him ; Silent and sad as he who haunts the spot Where joy should be — and, oh! where joy is not ; Wild with the thoughtless — gay amid the gay, But, oh ' my heart — my heart is far away ! Away and lonely — when my mirth is loud, Cold as the corpse within a gorgeous shroud ! — 'Mid sounds that on my ear unheeded roll, And songs that have no echo in my soul, And smiles that cannot wile my gloom away, I dwell — and with a brow as bright as they : TO A FRIEND. 157 Still tasting joys which cannot quench my pains, As vampires blood which never swells their veins. And yet, methinks — (how fondly we caress The cherished hopes which make our happiness !) Methinks that, haply, in some distant day, When fate's wild storms have scattered friends away, And time and distance roll their tides between, Like parted shores when torrents intervene, Thine eye upon this humble page may fall, And fancy may the fleeted past recall ; And then the voice that has so Ions: been mute, May seem to murmur like a broken lute, Sad as the wailing night-wind's fitful lay, Soft as the sound of music far away ! Then through thy heart my vanished form may pass, Like the frail shadow in a magic glass, Just smiling on thy dreams — to fade away, Like hopes that cheat us in life's little day ! — Oh ! if thy lips but name me with a sigh, And thou shalt weep for all the hours gone by, M 158 TO A Fill END. If from thine eyelid steal a single tear, — Pure as the dew-drop bathes the moonlight sphere,- That sigh, by spirits wafted through the gloom, Be all the dirge that murmurs o'er my tomb ! That holy tear, to consecrate my name, Is all my heart would ever ask of fame! Oh ! that, like thee, I had the magic art To write my name, for ever, on the heart ! More blest than I, thou seek'st no fading leaf, To trace memorials — sad as they are brief; Thy gentle image, on the soul imprest, Suns all the flowers that blossom in the breast, Alike 'mid every chance and change of fate, Hope's sweetest pledge — joy's charmed amulet. — In all my memories of the buried past, Thou art the loveliest — and shalt be the last ! SONG Come touch the harp! — that wailing strain Brings back the thoughts of other hours, The forms I ne'er may see again ; And brightens all life's faded flowers. In mournful murmurs, o'er mine ear Remembered echoes seem to roll, And sounds I never more can hear, Make music in my lonely soul. Oh ! touch the harp ! — now full and high The tide of feeling flows along, And many a thought that claims a sigh Seems mingling with thy magic song ! M 2 160 SONG. The forms I loved — and loved in vain, The hopes 1 nursed — to see them die. With tleeting brightness through my brain, In phantom beauty, wander by! Then touch the lyre, my own dear love ! My soul is like a troubled sea, And turns from all below — above, In fondness, to the harp and thee ! TO A YOUNG LADY. WITH A WREATH OF FLOWERS. Forget me not — forget me not ! But let these little simple flowers Remind thee of his lonely lot, Who loved thee in life's purer hours, When hearts and hopes were hallowed things, Ere gladness broke the lyre she brought ; — Then oh ! when shivered all its strings, Forget me not— forget me not ! We met, ere yet the world had come To wither up the springs of truth, Amid the holy joys of home, And in the first warm blush of youth ; 1( ;_) TO A VOI SQ LADY. We parted, as they never part Whose tears are doomed to be forgot,— Oh ! by that agony of heart, Forget me not — forget me not ! Thine eye must watch these flowerets fade, Thy soul its idols melt away, But oh ! when friends and flowers lie dead, Love can embalm them in decay ; And, when thy spirit sighs along The shadowy scenes of hoarded thought, Oh ! listen to its pleading song, — Forget me not — forget me not ! TO A LOCK OF HAIR. Beloved pledge of happier years, When life was in its bursting spring, Ere Love had learnt to speak in tears, Or Hope to stoop her eagle wing ! Though dark and drear thy story now, In sorrow shred— in sadness braided — And cold the eye, and dim the brow That once thy silken ringlet shaded, — I turn from brighter things, to bless Thee, in thine utter loneliness ! The world may have a healing power O'er gentle hearts — when hearts are breaking ; And time may rear some beauteous flower, To soothe away the spirit's aching; Hi | TO \ LO< K OF HAIR. And kindly tones ;uid smiling ryes M.iv deck the coming hours with gladness, And other hopes and friends arise, Like sunlight in the bosom's sadness ; \ es, age may chase each burning tear, But not one thought which made thee dear ! And oft shall Memory turn to weep, As visions of the buried past, Like dreams that haunt the mourner's sleep, Along my soul their beauty cast ; Oft shall the form we loved in vain, Twined with that soft and silken tress, Come gently stealing back again, In youth's unclouded loveliness ; With all the thoughts of other days That mingle in thy mystic maze ! As that lone harp which loves to tell Its sorrows to the passing wind, TO A LOCK OF HAIR. 165 Though sad its murmurs sink and swell, Still leaves a nameless joy behind ; So thou shalt waken many a string That in the heart has long- been broken, Yet peace shall in the spirit spring, Before thy touch, thou lonely token ! And thou shalt shed a holy rest, A fast of feeling through the breast. When life and love grow dark and dim, And friends are cold, and youth is past, My soul shall turn to thee, and him Whose heart was changeless to the last ; Years had not shed their withering blight Upon the freshness of his truth, Nor sorrow put one ray to flight That scattered gladness o'er his youth ; Hope in his web her garlands wove, And all his blessed lot was love ! Time was, each breeze that wandered by Could wave thee on thy native brow ; — Dili TO A LOCK or HAIR. The rudest storm that sweeps the sky On thee, and him, is powerless now. IK' ne'er shall know the bitter smart Of nursing dreams — to weep in waking, Nor feel that loneliness of heart For which there is no cure — but breaking! There had not been one cloud to stain That sun which ne'er can shine again. Lie near my heart, thou lonely thing ! Thou all that love had power to save ! And thou shalt rear the hopes that spring, The flowers that blossom, from the grave. Round thee shall dwell no thought of gloom, But fancy learn in thee to read A message from the spirit's home, A token from the silent dead. — The cold may frown — the kind depart — Lie thou, for ever, near my heart ! A FAREWELL. My early love! and must we part? Yes ! — other wishes win thee now, New hopes are springing in thy heart, New feelings brightening o'er thy brow; And childhood's light, and childhood's home, Are all forgot, at glory's call ; Yet cast one thought, in years to come, On her who loved thee— o'er them all ! When pleasure's bowl is filled for thee, And thou hast raised the cup to sip, I would not that one dream of me Should chase the chalice from thy lip ; But should there mingle in the draught One dream of days that long are o'er, Then— only then— the pledge be quaffed To her who ne'er shall taste it more ! 168 \ l \i:l w II I When love and friendship's holy joys Within their magic circle bound thee, And happy hearts and smiling- eyes, — As all must wear who are around thee !- Rememlu r that an eye as bright Is dimmed— a heart as true is broken, And turn thee from thy land of light, To waste on these some little token. But do not weep! — I could not bear To stain thy cheek with sorrow's trace, I would not draw one single tear, For worlds, down that beloved face : — As soon would I, if power were given, Pluck out the bow from yonder sky, And free the prisoned floods of heaven, As call one tear-drop to thine eye ! Vet oh, my Love ! 1 know not why, — It is a woman's thought ! — but while Thou offerest to my memory, The tribute should not be — a smile ! A FAREWELL. 169 For, though I would not see thee weep, The heart, methinks! should not be gay, That would the fast of feeling keep To her who loves it — far away ! No ! give me but one single sigh, Pure as we breathed in happier hours, When very sighs were winged with joy, Like gales that have swept over flowers ! That uttering of a fond regret, That strain my spirit long must pour ! A thousand dreams may wait us yet, — Our holiest and our first is o'er ! F I X I S. B. Bensley, Bolt-court, Fleet-street. [) TJttRAWT University of California SOUTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY 305 De Neve Drive - Parking Lot 17 • Box 951388 LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90095-1388 Return this material to the library from which it was borrowed . NOfti APR '«»*• •>* E DUE 2 WKS FRQh ILL-IPl SERVICE: JCLA ACCESS nterlibrary L 1630Univen x 9ol575 5 Angeies CA 9309 1575 DATE RECEIVED ty iiebtcjicfi Ltbfdry i\v "i/AJivaaui^' ■• , 4U'Jnv•JOl• , i ■*- rw* „ . r nnrtin\/A University o* L 006 212 807 9 ** 000 370 857