Puslapio vaizdai
PDF
„ePub“

SONG.

Dost thou idly ask to hear
At what gentle seasons
Nymphs relent, when lovers near
Press the tenderest reasons?
Ah, they give their faith too oft
To the careless wooer;
Maidens' hearts are always soft:

Would that men's were truer!

Woo the fair one, when around

Early birds are singing;

When, o'er all the fragrant ground,

Early herbs are springing:

When the brookside, bank, and grove,

All with blossoms laden,

Shine with beauty, breathe of love,—

Woo the timid maiden.

Woo her when, with rosy blush,

Summer eve is sinking;

When, on rills that softly gush,

Stars are softly winking;

When, through boughs that knit the bower,

Moonlight gleams are stealing;

Woo her, till the gentle hour

Wake a gentler feeling.

Woo her, when autumnal dyes
Tinge the woody mountain;
When the dropping foliage lies
In the weedy fountain;

Let the scene, that tells how fast

Youth is passing over,

Warn her, ere her bloom is past,

To secure her lover.

Woo her, when the north winds call

At the lattice nightly;

When, within the cheerful hall,

Blaze the fagots brightly;

While the wintry tempest round

Sweeps the landscape hoary,

Sweeter in her ear shall sound

Love's delightful story.

HYMN OF THE WALDENSES.

HEAR, Father, hear thy faint afflicted flock
Cry to thee, from the desert and the rock;
While those, who seek to slay thy children, hold
Blasphemous worship under roofs of gold;

And the broad goodly lands, with pleasant airs
That nurse the grape and wave the grain, are theirs.

Yet better were this mountain wilderness,
And this wild life of danger and distress-
Watchings by night and perilous flight by day,
And meetings in the depths of earth to pray,
Better, far better, than to kneel with them,
And pay the impious rite thy laws condemn.

Thou, Lord, dost hold the thunder; the firm land

Tosses in billows when it feels thy hand;
Thou dashest nation against nation, then

Stillest the angry world to peace again.

Oh, touch their stony hearts who hunt thy sons

The murderers of our wives and little ones.

Yet, mighty God, yet shall thy frown look forth
Unveiled, and terribly shall shake the earth.
Then the foul power of priestly sin and all
Its long-upheld idolatries shall fall.

Thou snalt raise up the trampled and oppressed,

And thy delivered saints shall dwell in rest.

MONUMENT MOUNTAIN.

THOU Who wouldst see the lovely and the wild Mingled in harmony on Nature's face,

Ascend our rocky mountains. Let thy foot

Fail not with weariness, for on their tops

The beauty and the majesty of earth,

Spread wide beneath, shall make thee to forget

The steep and toilsome way. There, as thou stand'st,
The haunts of men below thee, and around
The mountain summits, thy expanding heart
Shall feel a kindred with that loftier world

To which thou art translated, and partake
The enlargement of thy vision. Thou shalt look
Upon the green and rolling forest tops,

And down into the secrets of the glens,

And streams, that with their bordering thickets strive
To hide their windings. Thou shalt gaze, at once,

Here on white villages, and tilth, and herds,
And swarming roads, and there on solitudes.
That only hear the torrent, and the wind,
And eagle's shriek. There is a precipice
That seems a fragment of some mighty wall,

« AnkstesnisTęsti »