OSTEND. (ON HEARING THE BELLS AT SEA.) OW sweet the tuneful bells' responsive peal! So piercing to my heart their force I feel! And hark! with lessening cadence now they fall! And now along the white and level tide, VALCLUSA. HAT though, Valclusa, the fond bard be fled, That wooed his fair in thy sequestered bowers, As erst, when drooping o'er her turf forlorn, Yet still, enamoured of the tender tale, Pale Passion haunts thy grove's romantic gloom, Still undecayed the fairy garlands bloom, Still heavenly incense fills each fragrant vale, AT LEMNOS. IN this lone isle, whose rugged rocks affright Wept o'er his wound: alike each rolling light Of heaven he watched, and blamed its lingering flight: Through his rude grot, he heard a coming oar; Nor seldom listened to the fancied roar Of Eta's torrents, or the hoarser tide That parts famed Trachis from the Euboic shore. THOMAS RUSSELL. JOULD then the Babes from yon unsheltered cot Too thoughtless Youth! what tho' thy happier lot Insult their life of poverty and pain. What tho' their Maker doomed them thus forlorn To brook the mockery of the taunting throng, Beneath th' oppressor's iron scourge to mourn, To mourn, but not to murmur at his wrong! Yet when their last late evening shall decline, Their evening cheerful, though their day distress'd, A Hope perhaps more heavenly-bright than thine, A Grace by thee unsought, and unpossess'd, A Faith more fixed, a Rapture more divine Shall gild their passage to eternal Rest. T is a beauteous evening, calm and free; Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven is on the sea: And doth with his eternal motion make Dear child! dear girl! that walkest with me here, WILLIAM WORDSWORTH. |