Who watch, with us, at night's pale noon, How powerful, too, to hearts that mourn, To bring again the vanish'd scenes, The happy eves of days gone by; Again to bring, 'mid bursting tears, The loved, the lost of other years. And oft she looks, that silent moon, Or couch, whence pain has banish'd sleep : Oh! softly beams that gentle eye, On those who mourn, and those who die. But beam on whomsoe'er she will, And fall where'er her splendor may, There's pureness in her chasten'd light, There's comfort in her tranquil ray : What power is her's to soothe the heartWhat power, the trembling tear to start! The dewy morn let others love, Or bask them in the noontide ray; There's not an hour but has its charm, From dawning light to dying day :But oh! be mine a fairer boon That silent moon, that silent moon! R SPIRIT OF SPRING. SPIRIT, that from the breathing south, By the soften'd light of that sunny eye, And those golden tresses wantoning, And the perfumed breath of that balmy mouth. Spirit of beauty, these thy charms, Spirit of Spring! Spirit of Spring! thou com'st to wake The slumbering energies of earth; And their silence, hark! the wild birds break, For thy welcome, Spirit of Spring !— Spirit of life, thy triumphs these, Spirit of Spring! Spirit of Spring! when the cheek is pale, There is health in thy balmy air, And peace in that brow of beaming bright, And joy in that eye of sunny light, And golden hope in that flowing hair: Oh! that such influence e'er should fail, For a moment, Spirit of Spring— Spirit of health, peace, joy and hope, Spirit of Spring! Yet fail it must-for it comes of earth, But oh! there's a changeless world above, The holy hopes that earth has cross'd, And the pious friends that we loved and lost, Who will not watch, and strive, and pray, To join the throng of the saints in light, THE CLOUD BRIDGE: A REMEMBERED VISION, SAW ye that cloud, which arose in the west, That it seem'd-oh! it seemed like some arched way, Where the spirit, freed And robed in the white Of the saints in light, Might pass from the waves of sin and wo, Ye saw that cloud, how it tower'd alone, And mock'd at the dash of the angry flood, While it beamed-oh! it beamed from its battlements high, As it gleam'd, and stream'd, in that western sky, Such a flood of mellow and golden light, As chain'd and fix'd the ravish'd sight, Such, as we haste to our heavenly home, And the fashion of earth grows dim to our eye, Which enwraps the tomb, And guiding our eye To that world on high, Where the people who love thee, for ever shall share The rest thou hast purchased, and gone to prepare. JOHN NEAL. THE EAGLE. THERE'S a fierce gray bird-with a sharpen'd beak; That nurses her brood where the cliff-flowers blow, Like the crest of a warrior thinn'd in the fight, She sits in the glow of the sun-bright air! Had-suddenly-been snatch'd away— |