Move o'er sea-shells and bright sands,- Swift o'er the wave the light bark springs, Love's midnight hour draws lingering near: And list!-his tuneful viol strings The young Venetian Gondolier. Lo! on the silver-mirrored deep, On earth, and her embosomed lakes, And where the silent rivers sweep From the thin cloud fair moonlight breaks. Soft music breaths around, and dies Her vespers At their dim altars bow fair forms, The bell swings to its midnight chime, EUTHANASIA. My hour has come, I lay me down The angry forms of earth are fled, For me no golden beams are shed, One sense remains. I feel a hand If it be thine, my gentle bride! I asked of God an easy death, If thus life's links are rent apart I deemed of tortures in death's hour, Of fevered brain and limb, And of unearthly forms that lower, My dreams in death have other mould, Are with me-not the beaten gold I'm sinking as a bird on wing I come the scene is closed below, A SONG OVER THE GRAVE OF A LOVER. Aye, flowers may glow In new born beauty, and the rosy spring The early bloom Of flowers in freshest infancy I wreathe, And I have sought The lowly violet, that in shade appears, And rosebuds too, Crimson as young Aurora's blush, or white And flowers, that close Their buds beneath the sun, but pure and pale The fragrant leaves Of the white lily too with these I twine- There will be none To deck thy grave with flowers, and chant for thee These snatches of remembered melody, When I am gone. But thou shalt have A gift more precious than the buds I fling— Upon thy grave. REFORMED TOM BELL. I never knew a man profaner Than him they call reformed Tom Bell; His father-mother died of sorrow Brought on by his unkind career, His wives, one, two, three, could not borrow And many a maiden, fondly trusting, And many an orphan with heart bursting, And as for orisons and preaching And thus Tom Bell went on despising |