Then shall I bear a pining heart-- While friendship, health, and peace combine Life's dearest comforts to impart-- Ah! shall a thankless heart be mine!
No sure--content's too cold a name For what my bosom ought to feel; Thus favored, gratitude's sweet claim With thanks unceasing bids me kneel:
Bids me, thus lowly bending, vow Before the awful throne of Heaven-- Children of want, to share with you The good its gracious power has given.
In the lines which we next select, it will be perceived that to minds of delicate fibre and poetic temperament,--the most familiar objects in nature will often suggest mournful images and recollections. A flower will awaken affecting reminiscences of some long lost and beloved object.
Sweet floret! beauty of a day, And transient as thou'rt sweet; Scarce opening to the morning ray Ere shrinking from its heat:
Noon faded sees each early charm, Thy blue eye closed in death; And evening's breeze, thy wasted form Wafts lightly o'er the heath.
While thus, sweet child of summer skies, I see thee bloom and die; What tender recollections rise To prompt the pensive sigh:
For once in this lone bosom grew As fair, as sweet a flower, That smiled and budded forth like you In morn's propitious hour;
But ah! while joy and hope were new And promised bliss secure; Like you, it drooping faded too-- And sunk to bloom no more.
Oft as I through the twilight gloom A wandering mourner stray; Pale shadowy tenant of the tomb, She seems to cross my way:
For every object, every scene Does my lost love recall, From cheerful morning's rising beam To mournful evening's fall.
Our readers must not be induced to cast aside the following poem, from its length. It is full of genuine feeling and pious sentiment.
[Written in a dejected and visionary state of mind.]
Sweet beams the cheerful morn o'er happy hearts, And every smiling scene new bliss imparts; Each gay unfolding bud, each new born flower Exhaling odors, owns the sun's warm power; The new-waked birds their notes of gladness raise, The trembling dew-drop rainbow tints displays, In pendant beauty gems the lofty bough, Or glitters in the velvet turf below.
On active wing abroad, the industrious bees Their busy hum mix with the passing breeze, The light breeze curls the silver-bosom'd flood, Or freshening whispers through the waving wood; The sun, now mounting, gilds the eastern skies, Bright'ning the landscape with its glowing dyes-- Gay beauty smiles along each field and grove-- Congenial smiles--for youth, for joy, and love.