And yet can weep!-for nature thus deplores
The friend that leaves us, though for happier shores.
And one high tone of triumph o'er thy bier,
One strain of solemn rapture be allowed-
Thou, that rejoicing on thy mid career,
Not to decay, but unto death, hast bowed:
In those bright regions of the rising sun,
Where victory ne'er a crown like thine had won.
Praise for yet one more name with power endowed,
To cheer and guide us, onward as we press;
Yet one more image, on the heart bestowed,
To dwell there, beautiful in holiness!
Thine, Heber, thine! whose memory from the dead, Shines as the star which to the Saviour led.
CHILD, amidst the flowers at play,
While the red light fades away;
Mother, with thine earnest eye
Ever following silently;
Father, by the breeze of eve
Call'd thy harvest-work to leave;
Pray!-ere yet the dark hours be,
Lift the heart and bend the knee!
Traveller, in the stranger's land
Far from thine own household band;
Mourner, haunted by the tone
Of a voice from this world gone ;
Captive, in whose narrow cell
Sunshine hath not leave to dwell;
Sailor, on the darkening sea
Lift the heart and bend the knee!
Warrior, that from battle won
Breathest now at set of sun!
Woman, o'er the lowly slain
Weeping on his burial plain;
Ye that triumph, ye that sigh,
Kindred by one holy tie,
Heaven's first star alike ye see
Lift the heart and bend the knee!
I COME, I come! ye have call'd me long,
I come o'er the mountains with light and song!
Ye may trace my step o'er the wakening earth,
By the winds which tell of the violet's birth,
By the primrose-stars in the shadowy grass,
By the green leaves, opening as I pass.
I have breathed on the south, and the chesnut flowers
By thousands have burst from the forest-bowers,
And the ancient graves, and the fallen fanes,
Are veil'd with wreaths on Italian plains;
-But it is not for me, in my hour of bloom,
To speak of the ruin or the tomb!
I have look'd o'er the hills of the stormy north,
And the larch has hung all his tassels forth,
The fisher is out on the sunny sea,
And the rein-deer bounds o'er the pastures free,
And the pine has a fringe of softer green,
And the moss looks bright, where my foot hath been.
I have sent through the wood-paths a glowing sigh,
And call'd out each voice of the deep blue sky;
From the night-bird's lay through the starry time,
In the groves of the soft Hesperian clime,
To the swan's wild note, by the Iceland lakes,
When the dark fir-branch into verdure breaks.
From the streams and founts I have loosed the chain,
They are sweeping on to the silvery main,
They are flashing down from the mountain brows,
They are flinging spray o'er the forest-boughs,
They are bursting fresh from their sparry caves,
And the earth resounds with the joy of waves!
Come forth, O ye children of gladness, come !
Where the violets lie may be now your home.
Ye of the rose lip and dew-bright eye,
And the bounding footstep, to meet me fly!
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