Oh banquet not in those shining bowers,
Where Youth resorts, but come to me:
For mine's a garden of faded flowers,
More fit for sorrow, for age, and thee.
And there we shall have our feast of tears,
And many a cup in silence pour;
Our guests, the shades of former years,
Our toasts to lips that bloom no more.
There, while the myrtle's withering boughs
Their lifeless leaves around us shed,
We'll brim the bowl to broken vows,
To friends long lost, the changed, the dead.
Or, while some blighted laurel waves
Its branches o'er the dreary spot,
We'll drink to those neglected graves,
Where valor sleeps, unnamed, forgot.
THEE, THEE, ONLY THEE.
The dawning of morn, the daylight's sinking,
The night's long hours still find me thinking
Of thee, thee, only thee.
When friends are met, and goblets crowned,
And smiles are near, that once enchanted,
Unreached by all that sunshine round,
My soul, like some dark spot, is haunted
By thee, thee, only thee.
Whatever in fame's high path could waken
My spirit once, is now forsaken
For thee, thee, only thee.
Like shores, by which some headlong bark
To the ocean hurries, resting never,
Life's scenes go by me, bright or dark,
I know not, heed not, hastening ever
To thee, thee, only thee.
I have not a joy but of thy bringing,
And pain itself seems sweet when springing
From thee, thee, only thee.
Like spells, that naught on earth can break,
Till lips, that know the charm, have spoken,
This heart, howe'er the world may wake
Its grief, its scorn, can but be broken
By thee, thee, only thee.
SHALL THE HARP THEN BE SILENT.
Shall the Harp then be silent, when he who first gave
To our country a name, is withdrawn from all eyes?
Shall a Minstrel of Erin stand mute by the grave,
Where the first—where the last of her Patriots lies?
No—faint tho' the death-song may fall from his lips,
Tho' his Harp, like his soul, may with shadows be crost,
Yet, yet shall it sound, mid a nation's eclipse,
And proclaim to the world what a star hath been lost;—[1]
What a union of all the affections and powers
By which life is exalted, embellished, refined,
Was embraced in that spirit—whose centre was ours,
While its mighty circumference circled mankind.