THE STAR

How brilliant on the Ethiop brow of night
Burns yon fixed star, whose intermitting rays,
Like woman's changeful eye, now shun our gaze,
And now break forth in all the life of light!
Far fount of beams! thou scarce art to the sight,
In size, a spangle on the Tyrian stole

Of Majesty, mid hosts more mildly bright,
Although of worlds the centre and the soul!

Sure, 'twas a thing for angels to have seen,
When God did hang those lustres through the sky;
And darkness, turning pallid, sought to screen

With dusky wing her dazed and haggard eye;

But 'twas in vain; for, pierced with light, she died :

And now her timid ghost dares only brood

O'er planets in their midnight solitude,
Doomed all the day in ocean's caves to hide.
Thou burning axle of a mighty wheel!
Dost thou afflict the beings of thy ray
With feelings such as we on earth must feel-
Pride, passion, envy, hatred, agony?

Doth any weep o'er blighted hope? or curse
That hour thy light first ushered them to life?
Or malice, keener than the assassin's knife,
Stab in the dark? or hollow friendship, worse,
Skilled round the heart with viper coil to wind,
Forsake, and leave his sleepless sting behind!
No! if I deemed it, I should cease to look
Beyond the scene where thousands know such ills;
Nor longer read that brightly-lettered book
Which heaven unfolds, whose page of beauty fills

The breast with hope of an immortal lot,
When tears are dried, and injuries forgot.

Oh, then the soul, no longer earthward weighed, Shall soar towards heaven on exulting wing. Among the joys past Fancy's picturing,

It may be one to scan, through space displayed, Those wondrous works our blindness now debarsThe awful secrets written in the stars.

STANZAS

ADDRESSED TO THE AUTHOR'S MOTHER

Believe me, though my idle shell
Hath never breathed thy name before,

It was not that its voice could tell

Of one on earth I value more!

When thoughts of thee my soul came o'er,

I found, alas, a feeble lay

But ill expressed the love I bore

It said not what my heart would say.

And, if I now attempt to dwell

Upon a matchless Mother's praise,

Each word must, like a cypher, swell
The sum my fond affection pays:

Remember, did mine infant gaze
E'er thank thee for thy tenderness?
And, as thy spirit read its rays,
Imagine all I can't express!

What, if no proud or prosperous star
Hath bent upon my brow to shine-
If fortune marred, or still should mar,
The fault was ne'er-can ne'er be thine:
Thy hopes, thy zeal, thy tears, were mine-
Thy morning prayer, thy midnight thought—

I would not for a throne resign

That gratitude thy love hath taught.