Pleas'd with the sweetness of her song,
Time took the Syren for his bride;
But ere a year had roll'd along,

Disgust was born, and Pleasure died.

HOPE AND MEMORY,

Occasioned by the sentiment, that Hope perishes with the present brief existence, but that Memory is immortal.

[From the North American Review.]

1.

SWEET friend of Man! whose airy form
With eye of azure ray,

Is seen through every gathering storm,
Companion of his way.

2.

Thou on his childish lip dost press

Thy signet with a smile,

And on through Nature's weariness

His pilgrimage beguile.

3.

When disappointments wake regret,

Or dangers threaten loud,

He scarce can shrink ere thou dost set
Thy rainbow on the cloud.

N

4.

He scarce can weep, ere thou art nigh

To gild the falling tear;

To snatch the half unutter'd sigh,
And paint thy visions clear.

5.

But chiefly, when the dying saint

On his last couch reclines,

When lights of earth are dim and faint,
Thy brightest lustre shines.

6.

Thy smile is glorious to his eye,

Thy brow like seraph fair;

Thou point'st his journey to the sky,

But may'st not follow there.

7.

Thy friendship soften'd mortal ill,
Thy worth was drawn from woe;
And thou wert nourish'd by a rill,
Which there can never flow.

8.

Well pleas'd wert thou to cheer the gloom,

Beguile the short pursuit,

And paint the future rich with bloom,

Till man might reap the fruit.

9.

But when his beating pulse declines,
Thy own is chill and dead;

And when the real morning shines,
Thy taper's ray has fled.

10.

Yet one there is, who braves the blast,
When hope oblivious sleeps;
Her glance averted, seeks the past,
Her page its record keeps.

11.

She gilds no fairy scenes for youth,

No flight with fancy takes;

But in the holy cell of truth
Her silent temple makes.

12.

She guards the key, with wary eye, Where knowledge hides her store; To conscience gives th' unfading dye, That glows when time is o'er.

13.

The wise, the virtuous love to wait

Within her sacred bow'r;

The thoughtless shun, the fickle hate,

The guilty dread her pow'r.

N 2

14.

When death's dark curtain veils the eyes,

Resplendent glows her ray;

And when the unrob'd spirit flies,

She shares its unknown way.

15.

Through the drear valley, hung with gloom,
She bears her finish'd scroll; '
And spreads it at the bar of doom,
Where justice weighs the soul.

16.

She dauntless treads the troubled sphere
Of darkness and despair;

And those who stain'd her record here,
Must feel her vengeance there.

17.

If Mercy to a glorious land

The accepted soul invite,

She hovers round the perfect band,
Who dwell in cloudless light.

18.

And oft her tablet's varied trace

Of mortal care and pain,

From raptur'd angel harps shall raise

The loudest, sweetest strain.

AUTUMN.

[From Allston's Sylphs of the Seasons.]

AND now, in accents deep and low,
Like voice of fondly-cherish'd woe,
The Sylph of Autumn said:
Though I may not of rapture sing,
That grac'd the gentle song of Spring,
Like Summer, playful pleasures bring,
Thy youthful heart to glad;

Yet still may I in hope aspire

Thy heart to touch with chaster fire,

And purifying love;

For I with vision high and holy,
And spell of quick'ning melancholy,

Thy soul from sublunary folly

First rais'd to worlds above.

What though be mine the treasures fair Of purple grape and yellow pear,

And fruits of various hue;

And harvests rich of golden grain,
That dance in waves along the plain,

To merry song of reaping swain,
Beneath the welkin blue;