4. Then when the gloaming comes, Low in the heather-blooms, Sweet will thy welcome and bed of love be: Bless'd is thy dwelling-place! O to abide in the desert with thee! James Hogg (1772-1835). THE HOLLY-TREE. 1. O reader! hast thou ever stood to see The eye that contemplates it well perceives Ordered by an Intelligence so wise As might confound the atheist's sophistries. 2. Below, a circling fence, its leaves are seen No grazing cattle through their prickly round But as they grow where nothing is to fear, 3. I love to view these things with curious eyes And in the wisdom of the holly-tree Wherewith perchance to make a pleasant rhyme 4. So, though abroad perchance I might appear To those who on my leisure would intrude Reserved and rude, Gentle at home amid my friends, I'd be Like the high leaves upon the holly-tree. 5. And should my youth, as youth is apt, I know, Some harshness show, All vain asperities I day by day Would wear away, Till the smooth temper of my age should be 6. And as when all the summer trees are seen The holly leaves their fadeless hues display But when the bare and wintry woods we see, 7. So serious should my youth appear among So would I seem amid the young More grave than they, and gay, That in my age as cheerful I might be Robert Southey (1774-1843). LINES WRITTEN IN SICKNESS. Oh, Death! if there be quiet in thine arms, But strike me, ere a shriek can echo, dumb, Nor pull me downwards to mortality, To quit the things I have so loved, when seen- Knowing how few would shed one kindly tear, Thomas Campbell (1777 — 1844). THE LAST MAN. 1. All worldly shapes shall melt in gloom, The sun himself must die,Before this mortal shall assume Its immortality! I saw a vision in my sleep, That gave my spirit strength to sweep I saw the last of human mould, 2. The sun's eye had a sickly glare,--- Some had expired in fight,—the brands Earth's cities had no sound nor tread; 3. Yet, prophet-like, that lone one stood, That shook the sere leaves from the wood, Saying, we're twins in death, proud sun! For thou, ten thousand thousand years, Hast seen the tide of human tears, That shall no longer flow. 4. What though, beneath thee, man put forth His pomp, his pride, his skill,— And arts that made fire, flood, and earth Yet mourn I not thy parted sway, And triumphs that, beneath thee, sprang, 5. Go-let oblivion's curtain fall Nor with thy rising beams recall Its piteous pageants bring not back, Test of all sumless agonies, My lips, that speak thy dirge of death-- The eclipse of nature spreads my pall,— 7. This spirit shall return to Him Who captive led captivity, And took the sting from death! 8. Go, sun! while mercy holds me up To drink this last and bitter cup Thomas Campbell (1777 - 1844). THE TWO FOUNTAINS. 1. I saw, from yonder silent cave, Two fountains running side by side; "O Love!" said I, in thoughtless dream, pass'd, As o'er my lips the Lethe1 Be all my pains forgot at last." 2. But who could bear that gloomy blank, Still let this soul to thee be true- 1 Lēthē, in mythology, one of the rivers of hell, said to cause forgetfulness of the past to all who drank of its waters. |