Like burning thoughts which lovers hoard
In characters that mock the sight,
Till some kind liquid, o'er them poured,
Brings all their hidden warmth to light--
Are feelings bright, which, in the cup,
Though graven deep, appear but dim,
Till filled with glowing Bacchus up,
They sparkle on the foaming brim.
Each drop upon the first you pour
Brings some new tender thought to life,
And as you fill it more and more,
The last with fervid soul is rife.
The island fount, that kept of old
Its fabled path beneath the sea,
And fresh, as first from earth it rolled,
From earth again rose joyously;
Bore not beneath the bitter brine,
Each flower upon its limpid tide,
More faithfully than in the wine,
Our hearts will toward each other glide.
Then drain the cup, and let thy soul
Learn, as the draught delicious flies,
Like pearls in the Egyptian's bowl,
Truth beaming at the bottom lies.
MELODY.
BY WILLIAM LEGGETT.
If yon bright stars, which gem the night,
Be each a blissful dwelling sphere,
Where kindred spirits re-unite
Whom death has torn asunder here,
How sweet it were at once to die,
And leave this blighted orb afar,
Mixt soul and soul to cleave the sky,
And soar away from star to star.
But oh, how dark, how drear and lone,
Would seem the brightest world of bliss,
If wandering through each radiant one
We failed to find the loved of this;
If there no more the ties shall twine
That death's cold hand alone could sever;
Ah! then these stars in mockery shine,
More hateful as they shine for ever.
It cannot be each hope, each fear,
That lights the eye or clouds the brow,
Proclaims there is a happier sphere
Than this bleak world that holds us now.
There is a voice which sorrow hears,
When heaviest weighs life's galling chain;
'Tis heaven that whispers--Dry thy tears,
The pure in heart shall meet again.
MY NATIVE LAND.
BY THEODORE S. FAY.
Columbia, was thy continent stretched wild,
In later ages, the huge seas above?
And art thou Nature's youngest, fairest child,
Most favoured by thy gentle mother's love?
Where now we stand, did ocean monsters rove,
Tumbling uncouth, in those dim, vanish'd years,
When, through the Red Sea, Pharaoh's thousands drove,
When struggling Joseph dropped fraternal tears,
When God came down from heaven, and mortal men were seers?
Or, have thy forests waved, thy rivers run,
Elysian solitudes, untrod by man,
Silent and lonely, since, around the sun,
Her ever-wheeling circle, earth began?
Thy unseen flowers, did here the breezes fan?
With wasted perfume ever on them flung?
And o'er thy show'rs, neglected rainbows span,
When Alexander fought, when Homer sung,
And the old populous world with thundering battle rung?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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