Through the cold and cheerless season,
Soft thy tender form expands,
Safe in unaspiring graces,
Foremost of the bloomy bands.
White-robed flower, in lonely beauty
Rising from a wintry bed,
Chilling winds, and blasts ungenial,
Rudely threatening round thy head.
Silvery bud thy pensive foliage,
Seems thy angry blasts to fear,
Yet secure, thy tender texture
Ornaments the rising year.
No warm tints of vivid colouring
Paint thy bells with gaudy pride,
Mildly charmed we feel thy fragrance,
Where no thorns insidious hide.
'Tis not thine with flaunting beauty
To attract the roving sight;
Nature from her varied wardrobe
Chose thy vest of purest white.
White, as falls the fleecy shower,
Thy soft form in sweetness grows,
Not more fair the valley's treasure,
Not more sweet her lily grows.
Drooping harbinger of Flora,
Simply are thy blossoms drest,
Artless as the gentle virtues
Mansioned in the blameless breast.
When to pure and timid virtue
Friendship twines a votive wreath,
O'er the fair selected garland
Thou thy perfume soft shall breathe.
TO THE MEMORY OF H. KIRKE WHITE.
BRIGHT be the place of thy soul!
No lovelier spirit than thine
E'er burst from its mortal control
In the realms of the blesséd to shine.
On earth thou wert all but divine,
As thy soul shall immortally be,
And our sorrow may cease to repine
When we know that thy God is with thee.
Light be the turf on thy tomb,
May its verdure like emeralds be;
There should not be the shadow of gloom
In aught that reminds us of thee.
Young flowers and an evergreen tree
May spring from the spot of thy rest,
But nor cypress nor yew let us see,
For why should we mourn for the blest?
GOD'S OWN CHURCH.
THE lovely form of God's own church,
It riseth in all ands,
On mountain-sides, in wooded vales,
And by the desert sands.
There is it with its solemn aisles,
A heavenly, holy thing,
And round its walls lie Christian dead,
Blessedly slumbering.
Though sects and factions rend the world,
Peace is its heritage;
Unchanged, though empires by it pass,
The same from age to age.
The hallowed form our fathers built,
That hallowed form build we:
Let not one stone from its own place
Removéd ever be,
Clear voices from above sound out
Their blessing on the pile;
The dead beneath support our hands,
And succour us the while.
Yea, when we climb the rising walls
Is peace and comfort given,
Because the work is not of earth,
But hath its end in heaven.
TO THE MEMORY OF THOMSON.
WHILE virgin Spring by Eden's flood
Unfolds her tender mantle green,
Or pranks the sod in frolic mood,
Or tunes Æolian strains between ;
While Summer, with a matron grace,
Retreats to Dryburgh's cooling shade,
Yet oft, delighted, stops to trace
The progress of the spiky blade;
While Autumn, benefactor kind,
By Tweed erects his agéd head,
And sees, with self-approving mind,
Each creature on his bounty fed;
While maniac Winter rages o'er
The hills whence classic Yarrow flows,
Rousing the turbid water's roar,
Or sweeping wild a waste of snows,—
So long, sweet poet of the year,
Shall bloom that wreath thou well hast won; While Scotia, with exulting tear,
Proclaims that Thomson was her son!
A MOTHER'S LOVE.
HAST thou sounded the depths of yonder sea,
And counted the sands that under it be?
Hast thou measured the height of heaven above?
Then mayst thou mete out a mother's love.
Hast thou talked with the blessed of leading on
To the throne of God some wandering son?
Hast thou witnessed the angels' bright employ?
Then mayst thou speak of a mother's joy.
Evening and morn hast thou watched the bee
Go forth on her errand of industry?
The bee for himself hath gathered and toiled,
But the mother's cares are all for her child.
Hast thou gone with the traveller Thought afar,
From pole to pole, and from star to star?
Thou hast but on ocean, earth, and sea,
The heart of a mother has gone with thee.
There is not a grand inspiring thought,
There is not a truth by wisdom taught,
There is not a feeling, pure and high,
That may not be read in a mother's eye.
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