-Give me the death of those Their loveliest mother Earth In her sweet lap who gave them birth THE DIAL This shadow on the Dial's face, Since light and motion first began, Hath held its course sublime ;— What is it?- -Mortal Man! It is the scythe of TIME: -A shadow only to the eye; Yet, in its calm career, It levels all beneath the sky! And still through each succeeding year, Right onward, with resistless power, Its stroke shall darken every hour, Till Nature's race be run, And Time's last shadow shall eclipse the sun. Nor only o'er the Dial's face, This silent phantom, day by day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace, Steals moments, months, and years away; From hoary rock and aged tree, From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls From Teneriffe, towering o'er the sea, From every blade of grass, it falls; For still where'er a shadow sleeps And man at every footstep weeps Like flowerets glittering with the dews of morn, Fair for a moment, then for ever shorn: -Ah! soon, beneath the inevitable blow, I too shall lie in dust and darkness low. Then TIME, the Conqueror, will suspend Though TIME's triumphant flight be shown, The truest index on its face Points from the churchyard stone. ON THE DEATH OF A FRIEND. Friend after friend departs; Beyond the flight of time, Beyond the reign of death,- There is a world above, Where parting is unknown; A long eternity of love, Formed for the good alone; And faith beholds the dying, here, Thus star by star declines, Till all are past away: As morning high and higher shines, Nor sink those stars in empty night, But hide themselves in heaven's own light. CAMPBELL ODE. YE Mariners of England! That guard our native seas; Whose flag has braved, a thousand years, The battle, and the breeze! Your glorious standard launch again To match another foe, And sweep through the deep, While the stormy tempests blow; While the battle rages loud and long, And the stormy tempests blow. The spirits of your fathers Shall start from every wave ! For the deck it was their field of fame, Where Blake and mighty Nelson fell, As ye sweep through the deep, Britannia needs no bulwark, Her march is o'er the mountain waves. Her home is on the deep. With thunders from her native oak, She quells the floods below As they roar on the shore, When the stormy tempests blow; When the battle rages loud and long, The meteor flag of England Till danger's troubled night depart And the star of peace return. Then, then, ye ocean-warriors! Our song and feast shall flow To the fame of your name, When the storm has ceased to blow; When the fiery fight is heard no more, And the storm has ceased .o blow. |