With lorn delight the scene I view"d,
Past joys and sorrows were renew'd;

My infant hopes and fears
Look'd lovely, through the solitude

Of retrospective years.

And still, in Memory's twilight bowers,
The spirits of departed hours,

With mellowing tints, portray
The blossoms of life's vernal flowers

For ever fall'n away.

Till youth's delirious dream is o'er,
Sanguine with hope we look before,

The future good to find;
In age, when error charms no more,

For bliss we look behind.

..

THE SWISS COWHERD'S SONG
IN A FOREIGN LAND.

O When shall I visit the land of my birth,
The loveliest land on the face of the earth 1
When shall I those scenes of affection explore,

Our forests, our fountains,

Our hamlets, our mountains,
With the pride of our mountains, the maid I adore?
O when shall I dance on the daisy-white mead,
In the shade of an elm, to the sound of the reed l

When shall I return to that lowly retreat,
Where all my fond objects of tenderness meet,—
The lambs and the heifers that follow my call,

My father, my m ither,

My sister, my brother,
And dear Isabella, the joy of them all!
O when shall I visit the land of my birth? -
'Tis the loveliest land on the face of the earth!

THE DIAL.

This shadow on the Dial's face,

That steals from day to day, With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,

Moments, and months, and years away; This shadow, which, in every clime,

Since light and motion first began,
Hath held its course sublime ;—

What is it ?—Mortal Man!
It is the scythe of Time:
A shadow only to the eye;

Yet, in its calm career,
It levels all beneath the sky;

And still through each succeeding year,
Right onward, with resistless power,
Its stroke shall darken every hour,
Till Nature's race be run,
And Time's last shadow shall eclipse the sui

Nor only o'er the Dial's face,
This silent phantom, day by day,

With slow, unseen, unceasing pace,
Steals moments, months, and years away;

MONTGOMERY S POEMS.

From hoary rock, and aged tree,

From proud Palmyra's mouldering walls,
From Teneriffe towering o'er the sea,

From every blade of grass it falls;
For still, where'er a shadow sweeps,

The scythe of Time destroys,
And man at every footstep weeps

O'er evanescent joys;
Like flowerets glittering with the dews of morn,
Fair for a moment, then for ever shorn:
—Ah ! soon, beneath the inevitable blow,
I too shall lie in dust and darkness low.

Then Time, the Conqueror, will suspend

His scythe, a trophy, o'er my tomb,
Whose moving shadow shall portend

Each frail beholder's doom.
O'er the wide earth's illumined space,

Though Time's triumphant flight be shown,
The truest index on its face

Points from the churchyard stone.

THE ROSES.

ADDRESSED TO A FRIEND ON THE BIRTH OF HIS FIRST CHILD

Two Roses, on one slender spray,

In sweet communion grew,
Together hail'd the morning ray,

And drank the evening dew;
While sweetly wreathed in mossy green,
There sprang a little bud between.

Through clouds and sunshine, storms and showers,

They open'd into bloom,
Mingling their foliage and their flowers,

Their beauty and perfume;
While foster'd on its rising stem,
The bud became a purple gem.

But soon their summer splendour pass'd.

They faded in the wind,
Yet were these roses to the last

The loveliest of their kind,
Whose crimson leaves, in falling round.
Adorn'd and sanctified the ground.

When thus of all their honour shorn,

The bud unfolding rose,
And blush'd and brighten'd, as the morn

From dawn to sunrise glows,
Till o'er each parent's drooping head,
The daughter's crowning glory spread.

My friends! in youth's romantic prime,

The golden age of man,
Like these twin Roses spend your Time,

Life's little less'ning span;
Then be your breasts as free from cares,

Your hours as innocent as theirs!

And in the infant bud that blows

In your encircling arms,
Mark the dear promise of a rose,

The pledge of future charms,
That o'er your withering hours shall shine,
Fair and more fair as you decline;

Till, planted in that realm of rest,

Where Roses never die,
Amidst the gardens of the blest,

Beneath a stormless sky,
You flower afresh, like Aaron's rod,
That blossom'd at the sight of God.