HOW KEEN THE PANG.

How keen the pang when friends must part,
And bid the unwilling last adieu;
When every sigh that rends the heart,
Awakes the bliss that once it knew.

He that has felt, alone can tell
The dreary desert of the mind,
When those whom once we loved so well,
Have left us weeping here behind.

When every look so kindly shed,
And every word so fondly spoken,

And every smile is faded, fled,

And leaves the heart alone and broken.

Yes dearest maid! that grief was mine,
When bending o'er thy shrouded bier,
I saw the form that once was thine;
My Mary was no longer there.

But on the relics pale and cold
There sat a sweet seraphic smile,
A calm celestial grace that told
Our parting was but for a while.

WRITTEN TO A YOUNG LADY,

On entering a Convent.

'Tis the rose of the desert,
So lovely, so wild,
In the lap of the desert
Its infancy smiled;
In the languish of beauty

It droops o'er the thorn,

And its leaves are all wet

With the bright tears of morn.

Yet 'tis better thou fair one,

To dwell all alone,

Than recline on a bosom

Less pure than thine own;

Thy form is too lovely

To be torn from its stem, And thy breath is too sweet For the children of men.

Bloom on thus in secret,
Sweet child of the waste,

Where no lips of profaner,
Thy fragrance shall taste;
Bloom on where no footsteps
Unhallowed hath trod,

And give all thy blushes

And sweets to thy God.

LINES ON A DECEASED CLERGYMAN.

Breathe not his honor'd name,

Silently keep it;

Hush'd be the sadd'ning theme,
In secrecy weep it;
Call not a warmer flow

To eyes that are aching;

Wake not a deeper throe

In hearts that are breaking.

Oh 'tis a placid rest;

Who should deplore it?
Trance of the pure and blest,
Angels watch o'er it;

Sleep of his mortal night,

Sorrow can't break it,
Heaven's own morning light
Alone shall awake it.

Nobly thy course is run;
Splendour is round it;
Bravely thy fight is won;

Freedom hath crown'd it ;
In the high warfare

Of heaven, grown hoary,
Thou'rt gone like the summer-sun,
Shrouded in glory.

Twine,-twine the victor wreath,

Spirits that meet him ;
Sweet songs of triumph breath,
Seraphs to greet him ;
From his high resting place

Who shall him sever,

With his God,-face to face,

Leave him for ever.

LINES,

On the Death of an amiable and highly talented
Young Man, who fell a victim to fever
in the West Indies.

All rack'd on his feverish bed he lay,
And none but the stranger were near him;
No friend to console, in his last sad day;
No look of affection to cheer him.

Frequent and deep were the groans he drew,
On that couch of torture turning ;
And often his hot, wild hand he threw
O'er his brows, still wilder burning.

But, Oh! what anguish his bosom tore,

How throbbed each strong pulse of emotion, When he thought of the friends he should never see more, In his own green Isle of the Ocean.

When he thought of the distant maid of his heart,—
Oh, must they thus darkly sever ;—
No last farewell, ere his spirit depart;-
Must he leave her unseen, and for ever!

One sigh for that maid his fond heart heaved,
One pray'r for her weal he breathed;

And his eyes to that land for whose woes he had grieved
Once looked, and for ever were sheathed.

On a cliff that by footstep is seldom prest,
Far sea-ward his dark head rearing,
A rude stone marks the place of his rest;-
'Here lies a poor exile of Erin.'

Yet think not, dear Youth, tho' far, far away
From thy own native Isle thou art sleeping,
That no heart for thy slumber is aching to-day,
That no eye for thy mem'ry is weeping.

Oh yes!-when the hearts that have wailed thy young blight,

Some joy from forgetfulness borrow,

The thought of thy doom will come over their light, And shade them more deeply with sorrow.

And the maid who so long held her home in thy breast,
As she strains her wet cye o'er the billow,

Will vainly embrace, as it comes from the west,
Every breeze that has swept o'er thy pillow.