I feared to view my native spot,
Where he who loved it-now was not,
The pleasures of my home were fled :—
My brother slumbered with the dead.
I drew near to my father's gate ;—
No smiling faces met me now,
I entered,-all was desolate,-
Grief sat upon my mother's brow ;—
I heard her, as she kissed me, sigh ;
A tear stood in my father's eye;
My little brothers round me pressed,
In gay unthinking childhood blest.
Long, long, that hour has passed, but when
Shall I forget its gloomy scene !
The Sabbath came.-With mournful face
I sought my brother's burial-place—
That shrine, which when I last had viewed-
In vigour by my side he stood.
I gazed around with fearful eye :
All things reposed in sanctity.
I reached the chancel,-nought was changed :The altar decently arranged, —
The pure white cloth above the shrine,
The consecrated bread and wine,
All was the same. I found no trace
Of sorrow in that holy place.
One hurried glance I downward gave—
My foot was on my brother's grave!
And years have passed—and thou art now
Forgotten in thy silent tomb;—
And cheerful is my mother's brow,-
My father's eye has lost its gloom,—
And years have passed-and death has laid
Another victim by thy side,
With thee he roams, an infant shade,
But not more pure than thee he died.
Blest are ye both! your ashes rest
Beside the spot ye loved the best;
And that dear home, which saw your birth,
O'erlooks you in your bed of earth.
But who can tell what blissful shore
Your angel spirits wander o'er !
And who can tell what raptures high
Now bless your immortality!
My boyish days are nearly gone,—
My breast is not unsullied now;
And worldly cares and woes will soon
Cut their deep furrows on my brow,-
And life will take a darker hue
From ills my brother never knew;
And I have made me bosom friends;
And loved and linked my heart with others;
But who with mine his spirit blends,
As mine was blended with my brother's?
When years of rapture glided by
The spring of life's unclouded weather,
Our souls were knit, and thou and I,
My brother, grew in love together:
The charm is broke that bound us there ;
When shall I find its like again!
WHO IS MY NEIGHBOUR?
THY neighbour? It is he whom thou
Hast power to aid and bless,
Whose aching heart and burning brow
Thy soothing hand may press.
Thy neighbour? 'Tis the fainting poor,
Whose eye with want is dim,
Whom hunger sends from door to door;—
Go thou and succour him.
Thy neighbour? "Tis that weary man,
Whose years are at their brim,
Bent low with sickness, cares and pain,
Go thou and shelter him.
Thy neighbour? "Tis the heart bereft
Of every earthly gem;
Widow and orphan, helpless left ;—
Go thou and succour them.
Thy neighbour? Yonder toiling slave,
Fettered in thought and limb;
Whose hopes are all beyond the grave ;—
Go thou and ransom him.
Whene'er thou meet'st a human form
Less favoured than thine own,
Remember 'tis thy neighbour worm,
Thy brother, or thy son.
Oh pass not, pass not heedless by ;
Perhaps thou can'st redeem
The breaking heart from misery ;—
Go share thy lot with him.
ON CRUELTY TO ANIMALS.
I WOULD not enter on my list of friends
(Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man
Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm.
An inadvertent step may crush the snail
That crawls at evening in the public path;
But he that has humanity, forewarned,
Will tread aside, and let the reptile live.
The creeping vermin, loathsome to the sight,
And charged perhaps with venom, that intrudes
A visitor unwelcome, into scenes
Sacred to neatness, and repose, the alcove,
The chamber, or refectory, may die:
A necessary act incurs no blame.
Not so when, held within their proper bounds,
And guiltless of offence, they range the air,
Or take their pastime in the spacious field;
There they are privileged: and he that hunts
Or harms them there, is guilty of a wrong,
Disturbs the economy of nature's realm,
Who, when she formed, designed them an abode.
The sum is this. If man's convenience, health,
Or safety, interfere, his right and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs,
Else they are all-the meanest things that are
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all.
Ye, therefore, who love mercy, teach your sons
To love it too. The spring-time of our years
Is soon dishonoured and defiled and most
By budding ills, that ask a prudent hand
To check them. But alas! none sooner shoots,
If unrestrained, into luxuriant growth,
Than cruelty, most devilish of them all.
Mercy to him that shows it, is the rule
And righteous limitation of its act,
By which heaven moves in pardoning guilty man;
And he that shows none, being ripe in years,
And conscious of the outrage he commits,
Shall seek it, and not find it in his turn.
Distinguished much by reason, and still more
By our capacity of grace divine,
From creatures, that exist but for our sake,
Which having served us, perish, we are held
Accountable, and God, some future day
Will reckon with us roundly for the abuse
Of what He deems no mean or trivial trust.
I HAVE mused upon the sky and sea, and on the stormy flood;
I have wandered through the fairest glens, and by the moaning wood;
I have gazed upon the brightest forms that e'er creation knew;
I have basked in friendship's sacred ties and found them warm and true;
I have sought in solitude to win the peace my heart would love;
I have sought it in the giddy crowd-but no! it is above;
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