So tearless, yet so tender-kind,
And grieved for those he left behind;
With all the while a cheek whose bloom
Was as a mockery of the tomb,
Whose tints as gently sunk away
As a departing rainbow's ray—
An eye of most transparent light,
That almost made the dungeon bright,
And not a word of murmur-not
A groan o'er his untimely lot;
A little talk of better days,
A little hope my own to raise,
For I was sunk in silence-lost
In this last loss, of all the most;
And then the sighs he would suppress
Of fainting nature's feebleness,
More slowly drawn grew less and less.
I listened, but I could not hear;
I called, for I was wild with fear;
I knew 'twas hopeless, but my dread
Would not be thus admonished;
I called, and thought I heard a sound-
I burst my chain with one strong bound,
And rushed to him :-I found him not!
I only stirred in this black spot,
I only lived, I only drew
The accursed breath of dungeon dew!
The last, the sole, the dearest link
Between me and the eternal brink,
Which bound me to my failing race,
Was broken in this fatal place.
One on the earth and one beneath-
My brothers--both had ceased to breathe:
I took that hand which lay so still,
Alas! my own was full as chill;
I had not strength to stir or strive,
But felt that I was still alive-
A frantic feeling, when we know
That what we love shall ne'er be so.
I know not why I could not die!
I had no earthly hope-but faith,
And that forbade a selfish death.
What next befell me then and there,
I know not well-I never knew:
First came the loss of light and air,
And then of darkness too:
I had no thought, no feeling-none:
Among the stones I stood a stone.
A light broke in upon my brain-
It was the carol of a bird;
It ceased, and then it came again—
The sweetest song ear ever heard!
And mine was thankful, till my eyes
Ran over with the glad surprise;
And they that moment could not see
I was the mate of misery:
But then by dull degrees came back
My senses to their wonted track;
I saw the dungeon walls and floor
Close slowly round me as before-
I saw the glimmer of the sun
Creeping as it before had done:
But through the crevice where it came,
That bird was perched! as fond and tame,
And tamer than upon the tree;
A lovely bird with azure wings,
And song that said a thousand things,
And seemed to say them all for me;
I never saw its like before,
I ne'er shall see its likeness more :
It seemed, like me, to want a mate,
But was not half so desolate;
And it was come to love me, when
None lived to love me so again;
And cheering from my dungeon's brink,
Had brought me back to feel and think.
I know not if it late were free,
Or broke its cage to perch on mine;
But knowing well captivity,
Sweet bird, I could not wish for thine!
Or if it were, in wingèd guise,
A visitant from Paradise!
For-heaven forgive that thought!-the while
Which made me both to weep and smile—
I sometimes deemed that it might be
My brother's soul come down to me.
But then at last away it flew,
And then 'twas mortal-well I knew!
For he would never thus have flown,
And left me twice so doubly lone:
Lone as the corse within its shroud,
Lone, as a solitary cloud,
A single cloud on a sunny day,
While all the rest of heaven is clear!
A frown upon the atmosphere,
That has no business to appear
When skies are blue and earth is gay.
THERE is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
Roll on! thou deep and dark blue Ocean-roll! Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain; Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain A shadow of man's ravage, save his own;
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown!
His steps are not upon thy paths, thy fields
Are not a spoil for him,-thou dost arise
And shake him from thee; the vile strength he
wields
For earth's destruction thou dost all despise,
Spurning him from thy bosom to the skies,
And send'st him, shivering in thy playful spray,
And howling, to his gods, where haply lies
His petty hope in some near port or bay,
Then dashest him again to earth:-there let him lay!
The armaments which thunderstrike the walls
Of rock-built cities, bidding nations quake,
And monarchs tremble in their capitals,
The oak leviathans, whose huge ribs make
Their clay creator the vain title take
Of lord of thee, and arbiter of war;
These are thy toys, and, as the snowy flake, They melt into thy yeast of waves, which mar Alike the Armada's pride, or spoils of Trafalgar.
Thy shores are empires, changed in all save thee— Assyria, Greece, Rome, Carthage, what are they? Thy waters wasted them while they were free, And many a tyrant since; their shores obey The stranger, slave, or savage; their decay Has dried up realms to deserts :—not so thou, Unchangeable, save to thy wild wave's play; Time writes no wrinkle on thine azure brow; Such as Creation's dawn beheld, thou rollest now.
Thou glorious mirror, where the Almighty's form Glasses itself in tempests; in all time,
Calm or convulsed-in breeze, or gale, or storm, Icing the pole, or in the torrid clime
Dark-heaving; bounding, endless, and sublime— The image of eternity-the throne
Of the Invisible; even from out thy slime, The monsters of the deep are made; each zone Obeys thee; thou goest forth, dread, fathomlessalone!
THE night was falling dreary in merry Bandon town, When in his cottage weary an Orangeman lay down The summer sun in splendour had set upon the vale And shouts of "No surrender
Beside the waters, laving the feet of aged trees, The Orange banners waving, flew boldly in the breeze
In mighty chorus meeting, a hundred voices join, And fife and drum were beating the Battle of the Boyne.
Ha! toward his cottage hieing, what form is speeding now,
From yonder thicket flying, with blood upon his brow?
'Hide, hide me, worthy stranger, though Green my
And in the day of danger may heaven remember thee!
"In yonder vale contending alone against that crew, My life and limbs defending, an Orangeman I slew.
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