And many a word to do her good,
We whispered now and then;
And still, to show she understood,
Her lips would say - Amen!
Her parents by her pillow knelt,
Because they would be near;
But notwithstanding all they felt,
They did not shed a tear.
For still her finger and her eye
She frequently would raise;
And when our ear was very nigh,
We heard her speak of praise.
Until she faintly moved her head,
And turned upon her side;
"I come!" it seemed as if she said,
And then at once she died.
WHERE mighty Ganges pours along the plain,
And Indus rolls to swell the eastern main,
What awful scenes the curious mind delight!
What wonders burst upon the dazzled sight!
There giant palms lift high their tufted heads,
The plantain wide his graceful foliage spreads;
Wild in the woods the active monkey springs,
The chattering parrot claps his painted wings;
'Mid tall bamboos lies hid the deadly snake;
The tiger couches in the tangled brake;
The spotted axis bounds in fear away,
The leopard darts on his defenceless prey.
'Mid reedy pools and ancient forests rude,
Cool, peaceful haunts of awful solitude!
The huge rhinoceros rends the crashing boughs,
And stately elephants untroubled browse.
Two tyrant seasons rule the wide domain,
Scorch with dry heat, or drench with floods of rain:
Now feverish herds rush madding o'er the plains,
And cool in shady streams their throbbing veins;
The birds drop lifeless from the silent spray,
And nature faints beneath the fiery day;
Then bursts the deluge on the sinking shore,
And teeming plenty empties all her store.
ERE yet the clouds let fall the treasured snow,
Or winds began through hazy skies to blow,
At evening a keen eastern breeze arose,
And the descending rain unsullied froze.
Soon as the silent shades of night withdrew,
The ruddy morn disclosed at once to view
The face of Nature in a rich disguise,
And brightened every object to my eyes;
For every shrub, and every blade of grass,
And every pointed thorn seemed wrought in glass:
In pearls and rubies rich the hawthorns show,
While through the ice the crimson berries glow.
The thick-sprung reeds which watery marshes yield,
Seem polished lances in a hostile field.
The stag, in limpid currents, with surprise
Sees crystal branches on his forehead rise:
The spreading oak, the beech, and tow'ring pine
Glazed over, in the freezing æther shine.
The frighted birds the rattling branches shun,
Which wave and glitter in the distant sun.
Then if a sudden gust of wind arise,
The brittle forest into atoms flies,
The crackling wood beneath the tempest bends,
And in a spangled shower the prospect ends.
THE ORANGE-TREE.*
In the soft bosom of Campania's vale,
When now the wintry tempests all are fled,
And genial summer breathes her gentle gale,
The verdant orange lifts its beauteous head;
From every branch the balmy flow'rets rise,
On every bough the golden fruits are seen;
With odours sweet it fills the smiling skies;
But, in the midst of all its blooming pride,
A sudden blast from Apenninus blows,
Cold with perpetual snows;
The tender blighted plant shrinks up its leaves, and dies. LORD LYTTELTON.
WHEN day, declining, sheds a milder gleam,
What time the may-fly haunts the pool or stream;
When the still owl skims round the grassy mead,
What time the tim'rous hare limps forth to feed;
Then be the time to steal adown the vale,
And listen to the vagrant cuckoo's tale,
To hear the clam'rous curlew call his mate,
Or the soft quail his tender pain relate;
To see the swallow sweep the darkening plain,
Belated, to support her infant train;
To mark the swift, in rapid giddy ring,
Dash round the steeple, unsubdued of wing:
Amusive birds! say where your hid retreat,
When the frost rages, and the tempests beat?
Whence your return, by such nice instinct led,
When spring, soft season, lifts her bloomy head?
Such baffled searches mock man's prying pride:
The God of nature is your secret guide.
While deepening shades obscure the face of day,
To yonder beech, leaf-sheltered, let us stray,
Till blended objects fail the swimming sight,
And all the faded landscape sinks in night;
To hear the drowsy dorr come brushing by,
With buzzing wing, or the shrill cricket cry;
To see the feeding bat glance through the wood;
To catch the distant falling of the flood;
While o'er the cliff the awakened churn-owl hung,
Through the still gloom protracts his chattering song;
While high in air, and poised upon his wings,
Unseen, the soft enamoured woodlark sings.
Each rural sight, each sound, each smell combine,
The tinkling sheep-bell, or the breath of kine,
The new-mown hay that scents the swelling breeze,
Or cottage-chimney smoking through the trees.
WHITE.
CONSTANTINOPLE.
WHERE the Thracian channel roars,
On lordly Europe's eastern shores,
Where the proudly jutting land
Frowns on Asia's western strand,
High on seven hills is seen to shine
The second Rome of Constantine.
Beneath her feet, with graceful pride,
Propontis spreads his ample tide;
His fertile banks profusely pour
Of luscious fruits a varied store;
Rich with a thousand glittering dyes,
His flood a finny shoal supplies;
While crowding sails on rapid wing
The rifled South's bright treasures bring
The mournful cypress rises round,
Tapering from the burial-ground;
Olympus, ever capped with snow,
Crowns the busy scene below.
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