Though borne triumphant, are they safe; the gun,
Glanc'd just, and sudden, from the fowler's eye,
O'ertakes their sounding pinions; and again,
Immediate brings them from the towering wing,
Dead to the ground: or drives them wide-dispers'd,
Wounded, and wheeling various, down the wind.
These are not subjects for the peaceful muse,
Nor will she stain with such her spotless song;
Then most delighted, when she social sees
The whole mix'd animal creation round
Alive, and happy. "Tis not joy to her,
This falsely cheerful, barbarous game of death,
This rage of pleasure, which the restless youth
Awakes impatient, with the gleaming morn;
When beasts of prey retire, that all night long,
Urg'd by necessity, had rang'd the dark,
As if their conscious ravage shunn'd the light,
Asham'd. Not so the steady tyrant man,
Who with the thoughtless insolence of power
Inflam'd, beyond the most infuriate wrath
Of the worst monster that e'er roam'd the waste,
For sport alone pursues the cruel chase,
Amid the beamings of the gentle days.
Upbraid, ye ravening tribes, our wanton rage,
For hunger kindles you, and lawless want;
But lavish fed, in nature's bounty roll'd,
To joy at anguish, and delight in blood,
Is what your horrid bosoms never knew.
AUTUMNAL FEELINGS.
THE flowers are gone, the trees are bare,
There is a chillness in the air,
A damp that in the spirit sinks,
Till the shudd'ring heart within me shrinks:
Cold and slow the clouds roll past,
And wat'ry drops come with the blast,
That moans, amid the poplars tall,
A dirge for the summer's funeral.
Every bird to his home has gone,
Save one that loves to sing alone,
The robin; in yon ruin'd tree
He warbles sweetly, mournfully
His shrill note comes upon the wind,
Like a sound of an unearthly kind;
He mourns the loss of his sunny bowers,
And the silent haunts of happy hours.
There he sits like a desolate thing,
With a dabbled breast and a dripping wing;
He has seen his latent joys decline,
Yet his heart is lighter far than mine;
His task is o'er, his duty done,
His strong-wing'd race on the wind have gone, He has nothing left to brood upon;
He has still the hope of a friendly crumb,
When the wintry snow over earth shall come, And a shelter from the biting wind,
And the welcome looks of faces kind.
I wander here amid the blast,
And a dreary look I backward cast;
The best of my years I feel are fled,
And I look to the coming time with dread;
My heart in a desert land has been,
Where the flower of hope alone was green;
And little in life's decline have I
To expect from kindred's sympathy.
Like the leaves now whirl'd from yonder spray,
The dreams I have cherish'd, day by day,
On the wings of sorrow pass away.
Yet I despair not-time will bring
To the plumeless bird a new bright wing,
A warmer breeze to the now chill'd flower,
And to those who mourn a lighter hour;
A gay green leaf to the faded tree,
And happier days, I trust, to me.
"Twas best that the weeds of sorrow sprung With my heart's few flowers, while yet 'twas young, They can the sooner be destroy'd,
And happiness fill their dreary void.
THE passing year, all gray with hours,
Ends, dull month, with thee;
Chill'd his summer, dead his flowers,
Soon will his funeral be;
Frost shall drink up his latest breath,
And tempests rock him into death.
How he shivers! from his age
All his leaves have faded,
And his weary pilgrimage
Ends at last unaided
By his own sun, that dims its ray,
To leave him dark in his decay.
Hark! through the air the wild storm bears
In hollow sounds his doom,
While scarce a star its pale course steers
Athwart the sullen gloom;
And Nature leaves him to his fate,
To his gray hairs a cold ingrate.
She goes to hail the coming year,
Whose spring-flowers soon shall rise;
Fool, thus to shun an old friend's bier,
Nor wisely moralize
On her own brow, where age is stealing,
Many a scar of time revealing.
Quench'd volcanoes, rifted mountains,
Oceans driven from land,
Isles submerged, and dried-up fountains,
Empires whelm'd in sand;
What though her doom be yet untold,
Nature, like Time, is waxing old!
THE WINTRY WIND.
VOICE of the wintry wind!
To the young what sayest thou?
Thou tellest them of many things,
But they will not hear thee now.
Thou tellest of the spring-time gone,
Of summer pass'd away,
And sickly autumn sunk at last
In winter's dull decay ;
Of desolation's heartless rule,
Stripp'd woods, and faded flowers, And birds, that mute and trembling sit, In December's leafless bowers.
Thou tellest them man's life is like
The seasons of the year;
But their hearts are all too busy now
Thy friendly voice to hear.
A long, dim vista opens
To each young and ardent eye;
And in all the buoyancy of hope,
Thy warnings they defy.
Voice of the wintry wind!
What sayest thou to the old,
As flaggingly they onward go
Amid thy freezing cold?
Thou tellest them a long, sad tale,
Of joys and sorrows past;
Of friendships turn'd to coldness now,
And loves that did not last.
Thou tellest them of children gone
Into the silent grave;
And that they soon must follow them
They could have died to save.
Thou tellest them of feebleness,
As thou freezest on their cheek; Of joints which stiffen in the cold,
And sinews waxen weak.
Thou tell'st them, and they heave a sigh,
That their day of strength is o'er;
The health and wealth from them are gone,
And honour ever more.
They listen to thy mournful tale,
As thou art hurrying past,
And sigh for that appointed rest―
Their longest and their last.
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