Wake, wake again, the night

Is bending from her throne of beauty down, With still stars burning on her azure crown, Intense and eloquently bright.

Night, at its pulseless noon!

When the far voice of waters mourns in song, And some tired watch-dog, lazily and long, Barks at the melancholy moon.

Hark! how it sweeps away, Soaring and dying on the silent sky, As if some sprite of sound went wandering by, With lone halloo and roundelay!

Swell, swell in glory out!

Thy tones come pouring on my leaping heart,
And my stirred spirit hears thee with a start,
As boyhood's old remembered shout.

Oh! have ye heard that peal,

From sleeping city's moon-bathed battlements,
Or from the guarded field and warrior tents,
Like some near breath around you steal?

Or have ye in the roar

Of sea, or storm, or battle, heard it rise,
Shriller than eagle's clamour, to the skies,
Where wings and tempests never soar?

Go, go-no other sound,

No music that of air or earth is born,
Can match the mighty music of that horn,
On midnight's fathomless profound!

ADDRESS TO LORD BYRON,

ON THE PUBLICATION OF CHILDE HAROLD.

BY GRANVILLE PENN.

COLD is the breast, extinct the vital spark,
That kindles not to flame at Harold's muse;
The mental vision, too, how surely dark,
Which, as the anxious wanderer it pursues,
Sees not a noble heart, that fain would choose
The course to heaven, could that course be found;
And, since on earth it nothing fears to lose,

Would joy to press that blessed ethereal ground, Where peace, and truth, and life, and friends, and love abound.

I "deem not Harold's breast a breast of steel,"
Steeled is the heart that could the thought receive,
But warm, affectionate, and quick to feel,
Eager in joy, yet not unwont to grieve;
And sorely do I view his vessel leave-
Like erring bark, of card and chart bereft-

The shore to which his soul would love to cleave; Would, Harold, I could make thee know full oft, That bearing thus the helm, the land thou seekest is left.

Is Harold "satiate with worldly joy?"
"Leaves he his home, his land, without a sigh ?"
'Tis half the way to heaven!-oh! then employ
That blessed freedom of thy soul to fly

To Him, who, ever gracious, ever nigh,

Demands the heart that breaks the world's hard

chain;

If early freed, though by satiety,

Vast is the privilege that man may gain;—

Who early foils the foe, may well the prize obtain.

LYRE.

I

86

ADDRESS TO LORD BYRON.

Thou lovest nature with a filial zeal,

Canst fly mankind to brood with her apart;

Unutterable sure, that inward feel,

When swells the soul, and heaves the labouring heart

With yearning throes, which nothing can impart
But Nature's majesty, remote from man!
In kindred raptures, I have borne my part;
The Pyrenean mountains loved to scan,
And from the crest of Alps peruse the mighty plan.

"'Tis ecstacy to brood o'er flood and fell,"
"To slowly trace the forest's shady scene,"
Where things that own not man's dominion dwell,
And mortal foot hath ne'er or rarely been ;
To climb the trackless mountain all unseen,
With the wild flocks that never need a fold;
Alone o'er steeps and foaming falls to lean;-
This is not solitude !-'tis but to hold

Converse with Nature's God, and see His stores unrolled.

Forget we not the Artist in the art, Nor overlook the Giver in the grace; Say, what is Nature, but that little part Which man's imperfect vision can embrace Of the stupendous whole, which fills all space; The work of Him by whom all space is bound! Shall Raphael's pencil Raphael's self efface? Shall Handel's self be lost in Handel's sound? Or, shall not Nature's God in Nature's works be found?

But Harold "through sin's labyrinth has run,"
Nor "made atonement when he did amiss;"

And does the memory of that evil done

Disturb his spirit, or obscure his bliss?

ADDRESS TO LORD BYRON.

'Tis just; 'tis Harold's due-yet let not this Press heavier on his heart than heaven ordains; What mortal lives, not guilty nor remiss;

87

What breast that has not felt remorse's pains? What human soul so pure, but marked by sin's dark stains?

And can this helpless thing, pollute, debased,
Its own disfigured nature e'er reform?
Say, can the sculptured marble, once defaced,
Restore its lineament, renew its form?
That can the sculptor's hand alone perform,
Else must the marred and mutilated stone
For ever lie imperfect and deform ;-
So man may sin and wail, but not atone;
That restorative power belongs to God alone.

Yet is atonement made :-Creation's Lord Deserts not thus the work his skill devised; Man, not his creature only, but his ward, Too dearly in his Maker's eye is prized, Than thus to be abandoned and despised. Atonement is the Almighty's richest dole, And ever in the mystic plan comprised, To mend the foul defacements of the soul, Restore God's likeness lost, and make the image whole.

Oh!" if, as holiest men have deemed there be,
A land of souls beyond death's sable shore,"
How would quick-hearted Harold burn to see
The much-loved objects of his life once more,
And Nature's new sublimities explore

In better worlds!-Ah! Harold, I conjure,
Speak not in ifs;-to him whom God hath taught,
If aught on earth, that blessed truth is sure;
All gracious God, to quiet human thought,

Has pledged his sacred word, and demonstration wrought.

88

ADDRESS TO LORD BYRON.

Did Babylon, in truth, by Cyrus fall?

Is't true that Persia stained the Grecian land? Did Philip's son the Persian host enthrall? Or Cæsar's legions press the British strand? Fell Palestine by Titus' sword and brand?— Can Harold to such facts his faith entrust? Then let him humbly learn, and understand :"Then Christ is risen from the dead!"-the first Dear pledge of mortal frames yet mouldering in the dust.

But Harold "will not look beyond the tomb,"
And thinks "he may not hope for rest before :"
Fie! Harold, fie! unconscious of thy doom,
The nature of thy soul thou knowest not more;
Nor knowest thy lofty mind, which loves to soar ;
Thy glowing spirit, and thy thoughts subline,
Are foreign to this flat and naked shore,

And languish for their own celestial clime,

Far in the bounds of space,-beyond the bounds of time.

There must thou surely live-and of that life
Ages on ages shall no part exhaust:
But with renewed existence ever rife,
No more in dark uncertainty be tossed,
When once the teeming barrier is crossed;
(The birth of mortals to immortal day)—
Ò let not then this precious hour be lost,
But humbly turn to Him who points the way
To ever-during youth, from infinite decay!

Such, such the prospect,-such the glorious boon,
The last great end in Heaven's supreme design;
Deem not thy cloud continuous, for soon
Must truth break in upon a soul like thine,