OH! come at this hour, love! the daylight is gone, For, the moon is asleep on her pillow of clouds, 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! The birds, as they mingled their music of joy, Would but tell us of feelings for ever gone by, And the moonlight,-pale spirit! would speak of the time Along the green meadows, when life was in prime, When our hopes were as sweet, and our life-path as bright, As the star-spangled course of that phantom of light, Then come in this hour, love! when twilight has hung And no sound, save the murmurs that breathe from thy tongue, Or thy footfall-scarce heard on the ground! Shall steal on the silence, to waken a fear, THE CONVICT SHIP. MORN on the waters!—and, purple and bright, Full to the breeze she unbosoms her sail, And her pennant streams onward, like hope, in the gale! And the surges rejoice, as they bear her along! Oh! there be hearts that are breaking, below! Night on the waves!—and the moon is on high, Like a heart-cherished home on some desolate plain ! "Tis thus with our life, while it passes along, With streamers afloat, and with canvass unfurled; Yet chartered by sorrow, and freighted with sighs? 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. I AM ALL ALONE. 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 memory sits whole lonely hours, And weaves her wreath of hope's faded flowers, And the home of my childhood is distant far, And the looks that I meet, and the sounds that I hear, And the song goes round, and the glowing smile,— And faces are bright, and bosoms glad, And I seem like a blight in a region of bloom, I wander about, like a shadow of pain, With a worm in my breast, and a spell on my brain ; So I turn from a world where I never was known, SHE SLEEPS, THAT STILL AND PLACID SLEEP. SHE sleeps-that still and placid sleep- Oh! never more upon her grave, Shall I behold the wild-flower wave! They laid her where the sun and moon And I have dreamt, in many dreams, 'Tis years ago!—and other eyes Have flung their beauty o'er my youth; And I have hung on other sighs, And sounds that seemed like truth; And loved the music which thev gave, Like that which perished in the grave. And I have left the cold and dead, Oh! for a refuge and a home, With thee, dead Ellen, in thy tomb! Age sits upon my breast and brain, Than all the false and living crowd! Rise, gentle vision of the hours, Which go-like birds that come not back! And fling thy pale and funeral flowers On memory's wasted track! Oh! for the wings that made thee blest, ૨૧ |