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EPITAPH ON A YOUNG NAVAL

OFFICER,

DESIGNED FOR A TOMB IN A SEAPORT TOWN

IN NORTH WALES.

SAILOR, if vigor nerve thy frame,
If to high deeds thy soul is strung,
Revere this stone, that gives to fame
The brave, the virtuous, and the young.

For manly beauty decked his form,

His bright eye beamed with mental power; Resistless as the winter storm,

Yet mild as summer's mildest shower.

In war's hoarse rage, in ocean's strife,
For skill, for force, for mercy known;
Still prompt to shield a comrade's life,
And greatly careless of his own.

Yet, youthful seaman, mourn not thou
The fate these artless lines recall;
No, Cambrian, no, be thine the vow,
Like him to live, like him to fall.

But hast thou known a father's care,

Who sorrowing sent thee forth to sea; Poured for thy weal the unceasing prayer, And thought, the sleepless night, on thee?

Has e'er thy tender fancy flown,

When winds were strong and waves were

high,

Where, listening to the tempest's moan,
Thy sisters heaved the anxious sigh?

Or in the darkest hour of dread,

'Mid war's wild din, and ocean's swell, Hast mourned a hero brother dead,

And did that brother love thee well?

Then pity those whose sorrows flow

In vain o'er Shipley's empty grave;— Sailor, thou weep'st-Indulge thy wo; Such tears will not disgrace the brave.

AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.

OUR task is done; on Gunga's breast
The sun is sinking down to rest;
And moored beneath the tamarind bough,
Our bark has found its harbor now.
With furled sail, and painted side,
Behold the tiny frigate ride.

Upon her deck, 'mid charcoal gleams,
The Moslems' savory supper steams,
While all apart, beneath the wood,
The Hindoo cooks his simpler food.
Come, walk with me the jungle through;

If yonder hunter told us true,

Far off, in desert dank and rude,

The tiger holds his solitude;

Nor (taught by secret charm to shun
The thunders of the English gun,)
A dreadful guest but rarely seen,
Returns to scare the village green.
Come boldly on; no venomed snake
Can shelter in so cool a brake:
Child of the sun, he loves to lie

'Mid nature's embers parched and dry,

64 AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.

Where, o'er some tower in ruin laid, The peepul spreads its haunted shade, Or round a tomb his scales to wreathe, Fit warder in the gate of death, Come on-yet pause: behold us now Beneath the bamboo's arched bough, Where gemming oft that sacred gloom, Glows the geranium's scarlet bloom, And winds our path through many a bower Of fragrant tree and giant flower; The ceiba's crimson pomp displayed O'er the broad plantain's humbler shade, And dusk anana's prickly blade; While o'er the brake, so wild and fair, The betel waves his crest in air. With pendent train and rushing wings, Aloft the gorgeous peacock springs; And he, the bird of hundred dyes, Whose plumes the dames of Ava prize. So rich a shade, so green a sod, Our English fairies never trod;

Yet who in Indian bower has stood,

But thought on England's 'good green wood?" And blessed, beneath the palmy shade,

Her hazel and her hawthorn glade,

And breathed a prayer, (how oft in vain,)

To gaze upon her oaks again?

A truce to thought: the jackal's cry

AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL. 65

Resounds like sylvan revelry;

And through the trees, yon failing ray
Will scantly serve to guide our way.
Yet mark as fade the upper skies,
Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes,
Before, beside us, and above,
The fire-fly lights his lamp of love,
Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring,
The darkness of the copse exploring ;
While to this cooler air confessed,
The broad Dhatura bares her breast,
Of fragrant scent, and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night;
Still as we pass, in softened hum,
Along the breezy valleys come
The village song, the horn, the drum.
Still as we pass, from bush and briar,
The shrill cigala strikes his lyre;
And what is she, whose liquid strain
Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane?
I know that soul-entrancing swell!
It is, it must be,-Philomel!

Enough, enough, the rustling trees
Announce a shower upon the breeze,―
The flashes of the summer sky
Assume a deeper, ruddier dye;
Yon lamp that trembles on the stream,
From forth our cabin sheds its beam;

4*

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