Stranger, pause-for thee the day,
Smiling, lights its cheerful ray;
Spreads the lawn, and rears the bower,
Pours the stream, and paints the flower.
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FOR AN ASYLUM FOR THE BLIND AT LIVERPOOL.
i
Stranger, pause-with softened mind,
Learn the sorrows of the blind
Earth, and seas, and varying skies,
Visit not their cheerless eyes.
are 25.
Not for them the bliss to trace,
The chisel's animating grace ;
Nor on the glowing canvas find,
The poet's soul, the sage's mind.
Not for them, the heart is seen,
Speaking thro' the expressive mien; f
Not for them, are pictured there,
Friendship, pity, love sincere.
Helpless, as they slowly stray,
Childhood points their cheerless way;
Or the wand exploring guides
Faultering steps where fear presides.
Yet for them has genius kind,.
Humble pleasures here assigned;-
Here, with unexpected ray,
Reached the soul that felt no day.-
Lonely blindness here can meet,
Kindred woes and converse sweet;
Torpid once, can learn to smile,
Proudly o'er its useful toil-
He, who deigned for men to die,
Oped on day the darkened eye;—
Humbly copy-thou canst feel!
Give thine alms-thou canst not heal!
REFLECTIONS ON THE FOURTH OF JUNE.
WE
Ah day revered for sixty years!
Once day of joy, but now of tears—
No cannons peal! no bells are rung !
No loyal hymn by thousands sung,
From Thames to Ganges' shore !—
'Tis past, and, like forgotten things,
The birth-day of the best of Kings,
We celebrate no more!
Yet history's page shall mark the morn,
When England's George the Third was born;
And faithful to her sacred trust,
Shall call that monarch good and just,
No frail memorial this of flattering art;—
Time cannot raze the records of the heart!
I spring from the gold mottled east
In the face of the new-risen sun,
And I shine in the blaze of the west
When the race of his glory is run;
I sail in the breeze from the sea,
And I breathe in the ocean-weed smell
As the fresh wind from prison set free
Sweeps in joy o'er each mountain and dell.
When on the young wings of the morn
The lav'rock ascends from her nest,
My voice fills her orisons, borne
Far away on the firmament's breast;
The poet who loves the lone stream,
With face so impassioned and pale,
Hears faint as the voice of a dream
My sounds in the zephyrim gale.
I am found in the night's starry crown,
Where the angels and seraphims stray,
In the sky-stain, where spirits look down
Thro' the mists of the pale milky way;
And when midnight's sweet drowsiness breathes
O'er the leaves of a love-sickened flower,
I sleep in the cup that it wreathes,
And sip the bright dew in my bower.
Had I the power above this mortal state
To lift my burning soul ;-could I arise
As does the mountain-eagle when she flies
Up from the clouded earth, and elevate
Myself to those high regions that create
So many hopes to shake the human heart;
Could I asunder tear the links of fate
Swift as a winged arrow would I dart
Thro' the bright host of angels to thy throne."
Above it-hush! the star of morning sings,
And swinging worlds sweep past it with the tone
As of a distant whirlwind's rushing wings :
Behold the glory that around him streams,-
And yet his fate we murmur in our dreams.
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