HYMN TO THE NORTH STAR. THE sad and solemn night Hath yet her multitude of cheerful fires; Walk the dark hemisphere till she retires; and go. Day, too, hath many a star To grace his gorgeous reign, as bright as they; Through the blue fields afar, Unseen, they follow in his flaming way: And thou dost see them rise, Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. Alone, in thy cold skies, Thou keep'st thy old unmoving station yet, There, at morn's rosy birth, Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air, And eve, that round the earth Chases the day, beholds thee watching there ; There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven's azure walls. Alike, beneath thine eye, The deeds of darkness and of light are done ; High towards the star-lit sky Towns blaze, the smoke of battle blots the sun, The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud, And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud. On thine unaltering blaze, The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost, And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast; And, therefore, bards of old, A beauteous type of that unchanging good, way. THE LAPSE OF TIME. LAMENT, who will, in fruitless tears, I sigh not over vanished years, But watch the years that hasten by. Look, how they come,-a mingled crowd Of bright and dark, but rapid days; Beneath them, like a summer cloud, The wide world changes as I gaze. |