The melodies, the music quench'd and drown'd
In the hoarse ocean's all-pervading sound.
And now no longer the disdainful flood

'Gainst man's exterminated labour rages;
With nature's self intestine war she wages:
The seated mountain, with its weight of wood
Upheaving, hurls upon the groaning plain;
Rifts solid rocks, the marble ridge

Once wont the spacious continent to bridge,
With horrible disruption rends amain :

On highest crags, as though in scorn, are cast

Her weeds and shells in loose confusion vast:

Things huge and ponderous float-till now the Deep, Like a gorged monster, spreads in wide and waveless sleep.

O God Omnipotent! thy world is this,
Thy breathing world of beauty, wealth, and bliss ;
That made the morning stars rejoice,

And wondering seraphs lift the exultant voice?
Oh verdant groves, by crystal fountains clear!
Oh vales, whose ever-blooming flowers

No moisture knew but dews and gentlest showers; Oh mountains, where at eve were wont t' appear Plumed angels resting on their bright career!

Oh earth, by God himself approv❜d!

Oh earth, by every spirit of heaven belov'd!

Father Almighty! if thou spar'dst not them—
If vain all frantic cries of late repenting,
Wild wordless prayers in drowning agonies venting,
Vain the forced adoration of lost men,

Lost generations swept at once away,

Fierce self-reproach, and impotent remorse :
Nor Justice stay'd the inexorable course,

For rose-cheek'd youth, or childhood's blameless play,
For soft benign affections lingering still

To leaven the dark mass of human ill ;
Maternal love, friendship, and brotherhood,
All undistinguish'd sunk in the remorseless flood.

Thou spar'dst not; and shall we have nought to plead, Blind as of old, against the day of dread?

Still, still the measured years unfold,

Th' exhausted ages o'er the earth are roll❜d. Hark! voices from the perish'd and the past, From that old ruin'd world, "Repent! Repent!" Oh Earth! shall not thy soften'd face present

A fairer, holier aspect than the last?

Shall all thy heaven-sent gifts have run to waste?
Hath Goodness walk'd the world in vain,

With Peace, Joy, Wisdom in his train;

And Charity, before whose awful face

Brute Violence, and Fraud, and Ignorance rude,
May shrink to some lone untrod solitude,

And War lay down his desolating mace;

Majestic Order and all-reverenced Law
Rule o'er the nations; social Harmony
Gather mankind in one calm family:
Wisdom, consorting with religious Awe,

Guage earth, bridge ocean, soar the star-paved skies, Yet veil before God's throne her meek and reverent eyes? Shalt thou not find, God's, Love's eternal Son,

Thy kingdom here of truth, of peace, of love, begun ?

STANZAS

ON AN INCIDENT OBSERVED DURING THE FUNERAL OF THE DAUGHTER OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, THE WIFE OF MY FRIEND MR. LOCKHART.

"Over that solemn pageant mute and dark, Where in the grave we laid to rest

Heaven's latest, not least welcome guest,

What didst thou on the wing, thou jocund lark!
Hovering in unrebuked glee,

And carolling above that mournful company?

"O thou light-loving and melodious bird!

At

every sad and solemn fall

Of mine own voice, each interval

In the soul elevating prayer, I heard

Thy quivering descant full and clear

Discord not inharmonious to the ear!

"We laid her there, the Minstrel's darling child.

Seem'd it then meet that, borne away

From the close city's dubious day,

Her dirge should be thy native woodnote wild;

Nursed upon nature's lap, her sleep

Should be where birds may sing, and dewy flowerets weep?

"Ascendedst thou, air-wandering messenger! Above us slowly lingering yet,

To bear our deep, our mute regret ; To waft upon thy faithful wing to her

The husband's fondest, last farewell—

Love's final parting pang, the unspoke, the unspeakable?

"Or didst thou rather chide with thy blithe voice Our selfish grief, that would delay

Her passage to a brighter day; Bidding us mourn no longer, but rejoice

That it hath heavenward flown, like thee,

That spirit from this cold world of sin and sorrow free?

"I watched thee, lessening, lessening to the sight, Still faint and fainter winnowing

The sunshine with thy dwindling wing;

A speck, a movement in the ruffled light;
Till thou wert melted in the sky,

An undistinguish'd part of the bright infinity.