The ship is ours, as we shall see- Draw the keen knife-prepare to “board,” Secure the gold, apply the torch, Not in this form alone, appears The foe in friendship's sheen; On land, as well as ocean drear, False colors oft are seen. The idle gossip floats about With every changing gale, And with her siren voice, she breathes The nymph and swain catch up the sound And pipe it o'er and o'er, Till Love's bright wreath droops in the blast, "Who steals my purse, steals trash”—but ah, Is more than Pirate could demand,- Forbear, ye rovers on the land, Nor steal what gold can't buy ;- Take heed-give freedom to each sail- 1 SUMMER'S RETURN. SHE comes all adorned with bright odorous roses, List, list to the music, as sweetly 'tis falling, The fields at her touch are bespangled with flowers, The Summer is here-quite as youthful as ever, Then away to the woods while gay nature is smiling, REFLECTIONS OF AN OLD MAN. 'TWAS twilight hour I saw an old man leaning on his staff,— Those golden hours of dreaming youth, How soon they pass away, And leave us withering in the shade These eyes once bright, are faint and dim— I'm smitten by the frost of time, I cannot revel 'mong bright flowers Nor stoop at brink of crystal spring 'Neath balmy grove, with genial hearts Who blessed my boyhood's sight. I cannot roam with tiny step, Was wont to urge my skiff along, And was I once that ruddy boy, When pressed by a fond mother's lip? Relentless Time has swept away Those that fed my gaze; gems And soon his blighting, freezing breath, Must chill this fainting blaze. The dream, though fraught with pain, is sweet, 'Tis past,-I am alone ;— I will not sigh for youth again, For lost ones, will not moan. Though wreaths of sparkling roses crowned My brow in early day, How have I felt the lurking thorn Stealing my life away! Upon life's sea of boisterous wave, With bent and shattered mast. And one might read in these moist eyes, of the past; A story The inward harpstrings rudely riven, Then oh, my soul, thy yearnings cease, But speed thee on, my trembling bark, Hope aids me here to fix my gaze, Where youth and love forever dwell, THE DEAD CHILD. SUGGESTED ON SEEING A YOUNG MOTHER KISS HER LIFELESS INFANT. I HEARD a voice of mourning And I learnt 'twas a fond mother Bending o'er her lifeless infant, While like some chizzled statue, fine, it lay Still gazed the mother; and methought I heard, Jewel my own, my lov'd, my lost, I stoop to kiss thy marble brow ;- |