Читать книгу International Weekly Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science - Volume 1, No. 9, August 26, 1850 - Various - Страница 9

Oh! loveliest of the stars of Heaven,

Thus did ye walk the crystal dome,

When to the earth a child was given,

Within a love-lit, northern home;

Thus leading up the starry train,

With aspect still benign,

Ye move in your fair orbs again

As on that birth long syne.

Within her curtained room apart,

The pale young mother faintly smiled;

While warmly to a father's heart

With love and prayer was pressed the child;

And, softly to the lattice led,

In whispers grandams show

How those presaging stars have shed

Around the child a glow.

Born in the glowing summer prime,

With planets thus conjoined in space

As if they watched the natal time,

And came to bless the infant face;

Oh! there was gladness in that bower,

And beauty in the sky;

And Hope and Love foretold a dower

Of brightest destiny.

Unconscious child! that smiling lay

Where love's fond eyes, and bright stars gleamed,

How long and toilsome grew the way

O'er which those brilliant orbs had beamed;

How oft the faltering step drew back

In terror of the path,

When giddy steep, and wildering track

Seemed fraught with only wrath!

How oft recoiled the woman foot,

With tears that shamed the path she trod.

To find a canker at the root

Of every hope, save that in God!

And long, oh! long, and weary long,

Ere she had learned to feel

That Love, unselfish, deep, and strong,

Repays its own wild zeal.

Bright Hesperus! who on the eyes

Of Milton poured thy brightest ray!

Effulgent dweller of the skies,

Take not from me thy light away—

I look on thee, and I recall

The dreams of by-gone years—

O'er many a hope I lay the pall

With its becoming tears;

Yet turn to thee with thy full beam,

And bless thee, Oh love-giving star!

For life's sweet, sad, illusive dream

Fruition, though in Heaven afar—

"A silver lining" hath the cloud

Through dark and stormiest night,

And there are eyes to pierce the shroud

And see the hidden light.

Thou movest side by side with Jove,

And, 'tis a quaint conceit, perchance—

Thou seem'st in humid light to move

As tears concealed thy burning glance—

Such Virgil saw thee, when thine eyes,

More lovely through their glow,2

Won from the Thunderer of the skies

An accent soft and low.

And Mars is there with his red beams,

Tumultuous, earnest, unsubdued—

And silver-footed Dian gleams

Faint as when she, on Latmos stood—

God help the child! such night brought forth

When Love to Power appeals,

And strong-willed Mars at frozen north

Beside Diana steals.

How oft the burdened heart would sink

In fathomless despair

But for an angel on the brink—

In mercy standing there:

An angel bright with heavenly light—

And born of loftiest skies,

Who shows her face to mortal race,

In Friendship's holy guise.

Upon the brink of dark despair,

With smiling face she stands;

And to the victim shrinking there,

Outspreads her eager hands:

In accents low that sweetly flow

To his awakening ear,

She woos him back—his deathward track.

Toward Hope's effulgent sphere.

Sweet Friendship! let me daily give

Thanks to my God for thee!

Without thy smiles t'were death to live,

And joy to cease to be:

Oh, bitterest drop in woe's full cup—

To have no friend in need!

To struggle on, with grief alone—

Were agony indeed!

All daring sympathy—clear-sighted love—

Is, from its source, a ray of endless bliss;

Self has no place in the pure world above,

Its shadows vanish in the strife of this.

The toil—the tumult—the sharp struggle o'er,—

The casket breaks;—men say, "A martyr dies!"

The death—the martyrdom—has past before:

The soul, transfigured, finds its native skies.

The good—the ill—we vainly strive to weigh

With Reason's scales, hung in the mists of Time:

Yet child-like Faith the balance doth survey,

Held high in ether, by a hand sublime.