AN EVENING WALK IN BENGAL.

65

Resounds like sylvan revelry;
And through the trees, yon failing ray
Will scantly serve to guide our way.
Yet mark : as fade the upper skies,
Each thicket opes ten thousand eyes.
Before, beside us, and above,
The fire-fly lights his lamp of love,
Retreating, chasing, sinking, soaring,
The darkness of the copse exploring ;
While to this cooler air confessed,
The broad Dhatura bares her breast,
Of fragrant scent, and virgin white,
A pearl around the locks of night;
Still as we pass, in softened hum,
Along the breezy valleys come
The village song, the horn, the drum.
Still as we pass, from bush and briar,
The shrill cigala strikes his lyre ;
And what is she, whose liquid strain
Thrills through yon copse of sugar-cane ?
I know that soul-entrancing swell!
It is,-it must be,- Philomel!

Enough, enough, the rustling trees
Announce a shower upon the breeze,
The flashes of the summer sky
Assume a deeper, ruddier dye ;
Yon lamp that trembles on the stream,
From forth our cabin sheds its beam;

And we must early sleep to find
Betimes the morning's healthy wind.
But 0, with thankful hearts confess,
E'en here there may be happiness ;
And He, the bounteous Sire, has given
His peace on earth, his hope of heaven!

LINES WRITTEN TO HIS WIFE,

WHILE ON A VISIT TO UPPER

INDIA.

If thou wert by my side, my love,

How fast would evening fail
In green Bengala's palmy grove,

Listening the nightingale.

If thou, my love, wert by my side,

My babies at my knee,
How gayly would our pinnace glide

O’er Gunga's mimic sea.

I miss thee at the dawning gray,

When, on our deck reclined,
In careless ease my limbs I lay,

And woo the cooler wind.

I miss thee when by Gunga's stream

My twilight steps I guide, But most beneath the lamp's pale beam,

I miss thee from my side.

I spread my books, my pencil try,

The lingering noon to cheer, But miss thy kind approving eye,

Thy meek attentive ear.

But when of morn and eve the star

Beholds me on my knee,
I feel, though thou art distant far,

Thy prayers ascend for me.

Then on--then on; where duty leads,

My course be onward still,
On broad Hindostan's sultry meads,

O'er black Almorah's hill.

That course nor Delhi's kingly gates,

Nor mild Malwah detain,
For sweet the bliss us both awaits,

By yonder western main.

Thy towers, Bombay,gleam bright, they say,

Across the dark blue sea,
But ne’er were hearts so light and gay,

As then shall meet in thee.

HAPPINESS.

One inorning in the month of May

I wandered o'er the hill ; Though nature all around was gay,

My heart was heavy still.

Can God, I thought, the just, the great,

These meaner creatures bless, And yet deny to man's estate

The boon of happiness ?

Tell me, ye woods, ye smiling plains,

Ye blessed birds around,
In which of nature's wide domains

Can bliss for man be found.

The birds wild carolled over head,

The breeze around me blew, And nature's awful chorus said

No bliss for man she knew.