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On that mirror full oft other objects may play,
And flash on its surface alluringly gay;

But the joys of my home form a picture more bright,
That will glow in the darkness and blaze in the light;
For that picture is touch'd by a pencil most true,
And the colours that deck it are love's brightest hue;
As the vapours that rise from the far spreading main,
Ascend high in air, and in clouds charg'd with rain,
Descend on the vales, still, in rivers, their course
They will bend to that ocean that gave them their source.
So my love, tho' towards friends I have met 'twill oft burn,
To that centre, my home, it will always return.
Tho' the pleasures of home may be scattered at last,
Like the sear'd leaves of autumn borne off by the blast,
There's a home that is better and brighter than this,
Where no gloom will destroy or o'ershadow its bliss.
Oh! how sweet to reflect, when the world's storms are o'er,
There's a haven of joy on eternity's shore,
When our tempest-toss'd barks will be safe on its breast,
And our hearts from life's troubles eternally rest.

LINES

To a Stone from the Island of the "Lady of the Lake,” presented by a Friend who had visited Loch Katrine.

[From the American Monthly Magazine.]

THOU little brown stone, oh, what hast thou seen, Since the flood roll'd thee up on thy island so green;

How many vast ages have travell'd thee o'er,
Like wave after wave, on thy lake-girded shore !
How alter'd are all things, while thou art alone
Unalter'd, unchang'd, the same little brown stone!
How many huge trees have sprung where you lay,
Have grown up, and flourish'd, and moulder'd away!
How long was the time, when the deer's tread alone
Tore the branches away which thy lake had o'ergrown;
When the eagle alone woke the echo that slept
On the mountains around which thy paradise kept!
Ah, what hast thou seen since man swayed thy shore!
Saw'st thou the first boat which that plunderer bore?
And well hast thou mark'd every change he has made
Since he first drove thy deer from their far-spreading
shade.

Wast thou there when fair Ellen first walk'd on thy shore?
Didst thou see the proud bark as the pine flag they bore?
Didst thou hear the loud shout of the Saxon afar,
And saw'st thou thy clan as they fell in the war?
Or has thy fair lake never heard the war cry,
Sounding shrill as the bird of thy own native sky?
Is it fiction alone that endears thee to us?

If Scott had not sung should we feel toward thee thus?
No, thou little brown stone, alone on thy shore
Thou still would'st have listen'd to Loch Katrine's roar;
Unheeded thy heath-bell might bloom on thy isle,
And thy lakelet, unlov'd, in the sun-beams might smile,
And the cushat-dove's notes, as in days that are past,
Sound back to the moss-rocks the deer-hunter's blast,

How great is thy pow'r, then, thou bard of the North, When thou giv'st to a pebble a diamond's worth; When a little brown stone from Loch Katrine's shore Is more valued by us than Peruvian ore.

LINES

TO THE WESTERN MUMMY.

[From the American Monthly Magazine.]

O STRANGER, whose repose profound
These later ages dare to break,

And call thee from beneath the ground
Ere nature did thy slumber shake!

What wonders of the secret earth
Thy lip, too silent, might reveal!
Of tribes round whose mysterious birth
A thousand envious ages wheel!

Thy race by savage war o'errun,
Sunk down, their very name forgot;
But ere those fearful times begun,
Perhaps, in this sequester'd spot,

By friendship's hand thine eyelids clos'd,
By friendship's hand the turf was laid-
And friendship here perhaps repos'd
With moonlight vigils in the shade.

The stars have run their nightly round, The sun look'd out and pass'd his way, And many a season o'er the ground Has trod where thou so softly lay.

And wilt thou not one moment raise
Thy weary head, awhile to see
The later sports of earthly days,
How like what once enchanted thee?

Thy name, thy date, thy life declare— Perhaps a queen whose feathery band A thousand maids have sigh'd to wear, The brightest in thy beauteous land.

Perhaps a Helen, from whose eye
Love kindled up the flames of war-
Ah me! do thus thy graces lie
A faded phantom and no more!

(O! not like thee would I remain,
But o'er the earth my ashes strew,
And in some rising bud regain

The freshness that my childhood knew.)

But, has thy soul, O maid! so long
Around this mournful relic dwelt?
Or burst away with pinion strong,
And at the foot of mercy knelt?

Or has it in some distant clime

With curious eye unsated stray'd,
And down the winding stream of time
On ev'ry changeful current play'd?

Or lock'd in everlasting sleep
Must we thy heart extinct deplore?
Thy fancy lost in darkness weep,
And sigh for her who feels no more?

Or exil❜d to some humbler sphere
In yonder wood-dove dost thou dwell,
And murmuring in the stranger's ear,
Thy tender melancholy tell?

Whoe'er thou be, thy sad remains
Shall from the muse a tear demand,
Who, wandering on these western plains,
Looks fondly to a distant land.

SONNET.

[From the American Monthly Magazine.]

OH hide thy beams thou radiant source of light, Pour not on me the dazzling flood of day;

Dart not thy splendours on my wilder'd sight, Nor mock my misery with thy envious ray.

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