HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. THE sad and solemn night Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; The glorious host of light Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; All through her silent watches, gliding slow, Her constellations come, and climb the heavens, and go. Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they: Unseen, they follow in his flaming way: Many a bright lingerer, as the eve grows dim, Tells what a radiant troop arose and set with him. And thou dost see them rise, Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. Alone, in thy cold skies, Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, Nor dipp'st thy virgin orb in the blue western main. There, at morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, And eve, that round the earth Chases the day, beholds thee watching there; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls. Alike, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness and of light are done; Towns blaze-the smoke of battle blots the sun- On thy unaltering blaze The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost, Fixes his steady gaze, And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night, Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right. And, therefore, bards of old, Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood, Did in thy beams behold A beauteous type of that unchanging good, The voyager of time should shape his heedful way. THE LAPSE OF TIME. LAMENT who will, in fruitless tears, The speed with which our moments fly; I sigh not over vanished years, But watch the years that hasten by. Look, how they come,—a mingled crowd What! grieve that time has brought so soon The sober age of manhood on! As idly might I weep, at noon, To see the blush of morning gone. Could I give up the hopes that glow With all her promises and smiles? The future-cruel were the power Whose doom would tear thee from my heart. Thou sweetener of the present hour! We cannot-no-we will not part. Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight The months that touch, with added grace, In whose arch eye and speaking face The years, that o'er each sister land And nurse her strength, till she shall stand Till younger commonwealths, for aid, The crowned oppressors of the globe. True-time will seam and blanch my brow- And my good glass will tell me how A grizzly beard becomes me then. And then should no dishonour lie Upon my head, when I am gray, Love yet shall watch my fading eye, And smooth the path of my decay. Then haste thee, Time-'tis kindness all Thou fliest and bear'st away our woes, And as thy shadowy train depart, memory of sorrow grows The A lighter burden on the heart. |