"O GOD, IT IS A TERRIBLE THING TO DIE INTO THE INEXTINGUISHABLE LIFE,-(DAVID GRAY)
["And, blinded by thy beauty, call thee fair!"]
Alas! not often now thy silver horn
Shall me delight with dreams and mystic love forlorn!
[From "The Luggie, and Other Poems," by David Gray (Macmillan, 1862).]
HIS MINISTERS A FLAMING FIRE."-DAVID GRAY.
"GOD MAKES HIS ANGELS SPIRITS,-THAT IS, WINDS,
TO LEAVE THIS KNOWN WORLD WITH A FEEBLE CRY, ALL ITS POOR JARRING STRIFE."-GRAY.
"I FEAR NOT DEATH, BUT DYING-NOT THE LONG HEREAFTER, SWEETENED BY IMMORTAL LOVE,
"IN THE SWEET BREEZe spirits are alive."-GRAY.
HAVE wandered far to-day, In a pleased unquiet way; Over hill and songful hollow, Vernal bye-ways, fresh and fair, Did I simple fancies follow; Till upon a hill-side bare, Suddenly I chanced to see A little white anemone.
Beneath a clump of furze it grew ; And never mortal eye did view Its rathe* and slender beauty, till I saw it in no mocking mood; For with its sweetness did it fill To me the ample solitude.
A fond remembrance made me see Strange light in the anemone.
One April day, when I was seven, Beneath the clear and deepening heaven, My father, God preserve him! went With me a Scottish mile and more; And in a playful merriment
He decked my bonnet o'er and o'er- To fling a sunshine on his ease- With tenderest anemones.
Now, gentle reader, as I live, This snowy little bloom did give My being most endearing throes. I saw my father in his prime;
* Rathe (Anglo-Saxon, rath), "early."
"GOD'S ANGELS GUIDE THE THUNDER-CLOUDS."-GRAY.
BUT THE QUICK, TERRIBLE LAST BREATH, THE STRONG CONVULSION."-DAVID GRAY,
LIVING SONS WITH LIVING MOTHERS! LEARN THEIR WORTH, AND USE THEM GENTLY;
"HIS MERCY OVER ALL HIS WORKS REMAINS."-GRAY.
AST night a vision was dispelled, Which I can never dream again;
A wonder from the earth has gone, A passion from my brain.
* The name of the lover in Keats' poem of "St. Agnes' Eve."
ALL AROUND....CONTINUOUS DEITY."-DAVID GRAY.
FOR YOUTH IS QUICK, OF TEMPER STERN, AND APT TO BLUNDER WITHOUT GUIDING."-GRAY.
THERE IS BEAUTY AND DELIGHT AND PASSIVE FEELING
I saw upon a budding ash
A cuckoo, and she blithely sung To all the valley round about,
While on a branch she swung. Cuckoo, cuckoo: I looked around,
And like a dream fulfilled, A slender bird of modest brown,
My sight with wonder thrilled.
"OH, IN THE HEREAFTER BORDER-LAND OF WONDER, SHALL THE PROUD WORLD'S TALE BE TOLD,-(GRAY)
THE CURTAIN OF ALL MYSTERIES TORN ASUNDER, THE CEREMENTS FROM THE SOUL UNROLLED."-GRAY.
TO HIM WHO WALKS BENEATH THE BOUGHS."-D. GRAY.
'TIS SAD TO SPEAK OF TREasures gone,-(MRS. HEMANS)
And, as I live, the sovereign cry Was not the one I always heard. Oh, why within that lusty wood Did I the fairy sight behold? Oh, why within that solitude Was I thus blindly overbold? My heart, forgive me! for indeed I cannot speak my thrilling pain : The wonder vanished from the earth, The passion from my brain.
[From "The Luggie, and Other Poems."]
"DARKLY WE MOVE-WE PRESS UPON THE BRINK HAPLY OF NEUTER'S WORLD.”—MRS.
"NEARER THAN WE THINK ARE THOSE WHOM DEATH HAS PARTED FROM OUR LOT."-HEMANS.
[FELICIA DOROTHEA BROWNE was the daughter of a Liverpool merchant, and born on the 25th of September 1793. She "lisped in numbers," and made her appearance as a poetess at the early age of fifteen. In 1812 she published a second volume, "The Domestic Affections, and Other Poems," which met with a favourable reception; and in the same year was married to Captain Hemans. The marriage did not prove a happy one, and in 1818 they separated by mutual consent. "The Vespers of Palermo," a tragedy by Mrs. Hemans, was produced at Covent Garden Theatre, December 12, 1823, but not successfully. Her genius was rather lyrical than dramatic, and is seen to better advantage in short lays and ballads than in her sustained efforts. In 1826 she published "The Forest Sanc- tuary;" in 1828, "Records of Woman:" in 1830, "Songs of the Affec- tions ;" and in 1834, "Hymns for Childhood," and "Scenes and Hymns of Life." After a long and weary illness, she expired on the 16th of May 1835, at the early age of forty-one. Her longer works are now little read, though containing many graceful and tender passages; but some of her briefer songs will always occupy a place in our English anthologies. "If taste and elegance," says Lord Jeffrey, "be titles to enduring fame, we might venture securely to promise that rich boon to the author now be- fore us; who adds to these great merits a tenderness and loftiness of feeling, and an ethereal purity of sentiment, which could only emanate from the soul of a woman. If the next generation inherits our taste for short poems, we are persuaded it will not readily allow her to be forgotten. For we do not hesitate to say that she is, beyond all comparison, the most touching and accomplished writer of occasional verses our literature has yet to boast of."]
OF SAINTED GENIUS CALLED TOO SOON AWAY."-MRS. HEMANS.
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