Emblem of life! see changeful April sail In varying vest along the shadowy skies, Now bidding summer's softest zephyrs rise, Anon recalling winter's stormy gale, And pouring from the cloud her sudden hail; Then, smiling through the tear that dims her eyes, While Iris with her braid the welkin dyes, Promise of sunshine, not so prone to fail. So, to us, sojourners in life's low vale, The smiles of fortune flatter to deceive, While still the fates the web of misery weave. So Hope exultant spreads her aëry sail, And from the present gloom the soul conveys To distant summers and far happier days. SONNET. Ye unseen spirits, whose wild melodies, At evening rising slow, yet sweetly clear, Steal on the musing poet's pensive ear, As by the wood-spring stretch'd supine he lies; When he, who now invokes you, low is laid, His tired frame resting on the earth's cold bed; Hold ye your nightly vigils o'er his head, And chant a dirge to his reposing shade! For he was wont to love your madrigals; And often by the haunted stream, that laves The dark sequester'd woodland's inmost caves, Would sit and listen to the dying falls, Till the full tear would quiver in his eye, And his big heart would heave with mournful ecstasy. SONNET TO A TAPER. 'Tis midnight. On the globe dead slumber sits, And all is silence--in the hour of sleep; Save when the hollow gust, that swells by fits, In the dark wood roars fearfully and deep. I wake alone to listen and to weep, To watch my taper, thy pale beacon burn; And, as still Memory does her vigils keep, To think of days that never can return. By thy pale ray I raise my languid head, My eye surveys the solitary gloom; And the sad meaning tear, unmix'd with dread, Tells thou dost light me to the silent tomb. Like thee I wane;--like thine my life's last ray Will fade in loneliness, unwept, away. SONNET TO MY MOTHER. And canst thou, Mother, for a moment think That we, thy children, when old age shall shed Its blanching honours on thy weary head, Could from our best of duties ever shrink? Sooner the sun from his high sphere should sink Than we, ungrateful, leave thee in that day, To pine in solitude thy life away, Or shun thee, tottering on the grave's cold brink. Banish the thought!--where'er our steps may roam, O'er smiling plains, or wastes without a tree, Still will fond memory point our hearts to thee, And paint the pleasures of thy peaceful home; While duty bids us all thy griefs assuage, And smooth the pillow of thy sinking age. SONNET.