Clasp me a little longer, on the brink
Of fate! while I can feel thy dear caress;
And, when this heart hath ceased to beat-oh! think,
And let it mitigate thy wo's excess,
That thou hast been to me all tenderness,
A friend, to more than human friendship just.
Oh! by that retrospect of happiness,
And by the hopes of an immortal trust,
God shall assuage thy pangs-when I am laid in dust!
'Go, Henry, go not back, when I depart;
The scene thy bursting tears too deep will move,
Where my dear father took thee to his heart,
And Gertrude thought it ecstasy to rove
With thee, as with an angel, through the grove
Of peace,-imagining her lot was cast
In heaven; for ours was not like earthly love : And must this parting be our very last?
No! I shall love thee still, when death itself is past.
Hushed were his Gertrude's lips! but still their bland
And beautiful expression seemed to melt
With love that could not die! and still his hand
She presses to the heart no more that felt.
Ah, heart! where once each fond affection dwelt,
And features yet that spoke a soul more fair.
Mute, gazing, agonizing as he knelt,—
Of them that stood encircling his despair,
He heard some friendly words;-but knew not what they
LESSON CXIV.
To a Waterfowl.-Bryant.
WHITHER, 'midst falling dew,
While glow the heavens with the last steps of day,
Far, through their rosy depths, dost thou pursue
Thy solitary way?
Might mark thy distant flight to do thee wrong,
As, darkly painted on the crimson sky,
Thy figure floats along.
Seek'st thou the plashy brink
Of weedy lake, or marge of river wide,
Or where the rocking billows rise and sink
On the chafed ocean-side?
There is a Power whose care
Teaches thy way along that pathless coast,-
The desert and illimitable air,-
Lone wandering, but not lost.
All day thy wings have fanned
At that far height, the cold thin atmosphere;
Yet stoop not, weary, to the welcome land,
Though the dark night is near.
And soon that toil shall end,
Soon shalt thou find a summer home, and rest, And scream among thy fellows: reeds shall bend Soon o'er thy sheltered nest.
Thou'rt gone! the abyss of heaven Hath swallowed up thy form; yet, on my heart Deeply hath sunk the lesson thou hast given, And shall not soon depart.
He, who, from zone to zone,
Guides through the boundless sky thy certain flight,
In the long way that I must tread alone,
Will lead my steps aright.
LESSON CXV.
Hohenlinden.-CAMPBELL.
ON Linden, when the sun was low,
All bloodless lay the untrodden snow,
And dark as winter was the flow
Of Iser,* rolling rapidly.
But Linden saw another sight,
When the drum beat, at dead of night,
Commanding fires of death to light
The darkness of her scenery.
By torch and trumpet făst arrayed,
Each horseman drew his battle blade,
And furious every charger neighed,
To join the dreadful revelry.
Then shook the hills with thunder riven,
Then rushed the steeds to battle driven,
And, louder than the bolts of heaven,
Far flashed the red artillery.
And redder yet those fires shall glow,
On Linden's hills of blood-stained snow,
And darker yet shall be the flow
Of Iser, rolling rapidly.
'Tis morn, but scarce yon
Can pierce the war-clouds, rolling dun,
Where furious Frank, and fiery Hun,
Shout in their sulphurous canopy.
The combat* deepens. On, ye brave,
Who rush to glory, or the grave!
Wave, Munich, all thy banners wave !
And charge with all thy chivalry !t
Ah! few shall part where many meet!
The snow shall be their winding sheet,
And every turf beneath their feet,
Shall be a soldier's sepulchre.
To him who, in the love of Nature, holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And gentle sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware.
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart ;—
Go forth under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around-
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air,-
Comes a still voice-Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again;
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon.
The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thy eternal resting place
Shalt thou retire alone-nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world-with kings,
The powerful of the earth-the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre.-The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,-the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods-rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, poured round all. Old ocean's gray and melancholy waste,—
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages.
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.-Take the wings
Of morning-and the Barcan desert pierce,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregan, and hears no sound,
Save his own dashings-yet-the dead are there,
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep-the dead reign there alone.-
So shalt thou rest-and what if thou shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living-and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one, as before, will chase
His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come,
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, mātron, and maid,
The bowed with age, the infant in the smiles
And beauty of its innocent age cut off,—
Shall, one by one, be gathered to thy side,
By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan, that moves
To the pale realms of shade, where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged to his dungeon; but, sustained and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
Charity to Orphans.-STERNE.
THEY whom God hath blessed with the means, and for whom he has done more, in blessing them likewise with a disposition, have abundant reason to be thankful to him, as the Author of every good gift, for the measure he hath bestowed to them of both: it is the refuge against the stormy wind and tempest, which he has planted in our hearts; and the constant fluctuation of every thing in this world, forces all the sons and daughters of Adam to seek shelter under it by turns. Guard it by entails' and settle
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