Meek Lamb! thy moan within my soul A moral left behind; For prayer and anthem o'er it stole I turned from saints, from praisings loud, From all I sought, from all I am, To think upon that prisoned Lamb. SONNETS I YESTERDAY. PALE pilgrim of the heavens, that late didst glide And vanished blushingly. Sad Yesterday! Night's winding-sheet is round thee, and the eyes That found a health, or fever, in thy ray, And thoughtfully perused on evening skies Thine elegy, star-lettered-now away Turn their brief thoughts of thee, and thus men moralize. II TO-DAY. A LIBERAL Worlding, gay philosopher, A home of love that sense might almost err, Even thou art but a leaf from off the tree Of yellowing Time; a grain of glistening sand Where thou to-night shalt sink, and I as soon may be. III TO-MORROW. WHO shall imagine how thy wing may sweep, To blight-war-famine? Who shall say if e'er But fading sparks on gossip memory's hearth; Looks o'er a wailing world. The dawn, the dawn, is near. IV WISHES OF YOUTH. GAILY and greenly let my seasons run; And should the war-winds of the world uproot Cast forth as fuel for the fiery sun; The dews be turned to ice-fair days begun In peace wear out in pain, and sounds that suit On wintry wrecks an altar to the spring. |