What is life, but a vision! The forms which have spread
Their enchantment around us, and gladdened our day,
Like the vanishing vapors of morning have fled,
Or like eve's sun-gilt clouds, they are passing away.
And when Youth's cherished hopes shall have faded and gone,
And this turbulent dream of existence is o'er—
When life's sparkling current hath ceased to flow on,
And the place which now knows me will know me no more—
Then bright on this page be engraven my name,
And long may it live, when my being is past;
Let others contend for a loftier fame,
No nobler, no dearer, no other, I ask.
Here perchance shouldst thou see it, forgotten, unknown,
Oh! hallow that name with the dew of a tear!
Far sweeter the tribute, than tale-telling stone,
Which Pride, or Ambition, or Folly might rear.
J. H. B.
[SONNETS: BY 'QUINCE.']
ABSENCE.
Earth owns no smiles in absence of the sun;
Dark mourns the night when chambered is her queen;
The sweet flowers wither when Sol's spring is run;
Nor fairies dance but in chaste Luna's sheen.
Nothing but mourns from that it loves apart:
The lone bird sorrows from its sever'd mate;
And pines and withers the fond human heart,
When those it worshipped leave it desolate.
Thus in earth, night, flower, bird, creation's lord,
The sweetest, dearest bond, is sympathy;
Which sever'd, snaps the close-entwining chord
That all things binds in some fond unity.
Life-killing Absence, 'neath thy curse I pine,
Affection's Upas tree—that name be thine!
AGE.
Age is the winter season of man's life,
The last dim flickering of the taper's ray;
'Tis the last act that closes earthly strife;
The latest character that he may play.
Yet here, i' the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With rev'rend hair, white as the drifted snow,
We madly mock our fate—play the buffoon,
And self-deceiving to the dark grave go.
The withered leaf clings latest to the tree,
Hope vainly builds itself on dark despair;
The shipwreck'd mariner buffets with the sea,
And vainly strives for life, though death be there.
So age, with palsied hand, to life doth cling
Most fondly, as from age life taketh wing.
AMBITION.