Like a breeze o'er the lake, when it breathlessly lies, With its own mimic mountains, and star-spangled skies; I stretch my light pinions around thee when sleeping, To guard thee from spirits of sorrow and weeping.
I breathe o'er thy slumbers sweet dreams of delight, Till you wake but to sigh for the visions of night; Then remember, wherever your pathway may lie, Be it clouded with sorrow, or brilliant with joy;
My spirit shall watch thee, wherever thou art, My incense shall rise from the throne of thy heart. Farewell! for the shadows of evening are fled, And the young rays of morning are wreathed round my head.
WHAT IS SOLITUDE?
BY C. F. HOFFMAN.
Not in the shadowy wood, Not in the crag-hung glen, Not where the sleeping echoes brood In caves untrod by men; Not by the sea-swept shore Where loitering surges break, Not on the mountain hoar, Not by the breezeless lake, Not in the desert plain Where man hath never stood, Whether on isle or main— Not there is Solitude!
There are birds in the woodland bowers, Voices in lonely dells, And streams that talk to the listening hours In earth's most secret cells. There is life on the foam-flecked sand By ocean's curling lip, And life on the still lake's strand 'Mid flowers that o'er it dip; There is life in the tossing pines That plume the mountain crest, And life in the courser's mane that shines As he scours the desert's breast.
But go to the crowded mart, 'Mid the sordid haunts of men, Go there and ask thy heart, What answer makes it then? Go where the wine-cup's gleaming, In hall or festal grot; Where love-lit eyes are beaming, But Love himself is not!— Go—if thou wouldst be lonely— Where the phantom Pleasure's wooed, And own that there—there only— 'Mid crowds is Solitude.