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A DRINKING SONG.

BY LORD BYRON.

FILL the goblet again! for I never before

Felt the glow that now gladdens my heart to its core; Let us drink?-Who would not? since through life's varied round

In the goblet alone no deception is found.

I have tried in its turn all that life can supply;
I have basked in the beam of a dark rolling eye;
I have loved!-Who has not?-but what tongue will
declare,

That pleasure existed whilst passion was there!

In the days of my youth-when the heart's in its spring,

And dreams that affection can never take wing,-
I had friends!-Who has not?-but what tongue will

avow

That friends, rosy wine, are so faithful as thou!

The breast of a mistress some boy may estrange ;' Friendship shifts with the sunbeam ;-thou never canst change;

Thou growest old!-Who does not?-but on earth what appears,

Whose virtues like thine but increase with their years.

Yet if blessed to the utmost that love can bestow,
Should a rival bow down to our idol below;

We are jealous!-Who's not?-thou hast no such alloy,

For the more that enjoy thee, the more they enjoy.

52

A DRINKING SONG.

Then the season of Youth and its jollities past,
For refuge we fly to the goblet at last;

There we find-Do we not ?-in the flow of the soul,
That truth, as of yore, is confined to the bowl.

When the Box of Pandora was opened on earth,
And Misery's triumph commenced over Mirth,
Hope was left!-Was she not ?—but the goblet we
kiss,

And care not for hope who are certain of bliss!

Long life to the grape, and when summer is flown,
The age of our nectar shall gladden our own ;

We must die!-Who shall not?-may our sins be forgiven,

And Hebe shall never be idle in Heaven!

TO LORD BYRON.*

BY THOMAS MOORE.

WHY hast thou bound around, with silver rim,
This once gay peopled palace of the soul?
Look on it now! deserted, bleached, and grim,
Is this, thou feverish man, thy festal bowl?

Is this the cup wherein thou seek'st the balm,
Each brighter chalice to thy lip denies ?
Is this the oblivious bowl whose floods becalm,
The worm that will not sleep and never dies?

*On reading his "Stanzas on the Silver Foot of a Skull mounted as a Cup for Wine."

Woe to the lip to which this cup is held!
The lip that's pall'd with every purer draught;
For which alone the rifled grave can yield
A goblet worthy to be deeply quaffed.

Strip, then, this glittering mockery from the skull,
Restore the relic to its tomb again;

And seek a healing balm within the bowl,
The blessed bowl that never flowed in vain.

THE AMERICAN EAGLE.

BY CHARLES WEST THOMPSON.

BIRD of the heavens! whose matchless eye
Alone can front the blaze of day,
And, wand'ring through the radiant sky,
Ne'er from the sunlight turns away;
Whose ample wing was made to rise
Majestic o'er the loftiest peak,
On whose chill tops the winter skies,
Around thy nest, in tempests speak.
What ranger of the winds can dare,
Proud mountain king! with thee compare;
Or lift his gaudier plumes on high
Before thy native majesty,

When thou hast ta'en thy seat alone,
Upon thy cloud-encircled throne?

Bird of the cliffs! thy noble form
Might well be thought almost divine;
Born for the thunder and the storm,

The mountain and the rock are thine;

54

THE AMERICAN EAGLE.

And there, where never foot has been,
Thy eyrie is sublimely hung,
Where lowering skies their wrath begin,
And loudest lullabies are sung
By the fierce spirit of the blast,
When, his snow mantle o'er him cast,
He sweeps across the mountain top,
With a dark fury nought can stop,
And wings his wild unearthly way
Far through the clouded realms of day.

Bird of the sun! to thee-to thee

The earliest tints of dawn are known, And 'tis thy proud delight to see

The monarch mount his gorgeous throne;
Throwing the crimson drapery by,
That half impedes his glorious way;
And mounting up the radiant sky,
E'en what he is the king of day!
Before the regent of the skies

Men shrink, and veil their dazzled eyes;
But thou, in regal majesty,

Hast kingly rank as well as he;

And with a steady, dauntless gaze,

Thou meet'st the splendour of his blaze.

Bird of Colombia! well art thou
An emblem of our native land;
With unblenched front and noble brow,
Among the nations doomed to stand;
Proud, like her mighty mountain woods;
Like her own rivers, wandering free;
And sending forth, from hills and floods,
The joyous shout of liberty!
Like thee, majestic bird! like thee,
She stands in unbought majesty,

With spreading wing, untired and strong,
That dares a soaring far and long,
That mounts aloft, nor looks below,
And will not quail though tempests blow.

The admiration of the earth,

In grand simplicity she stands ; Like thee, the storms beheld her birth, And she was nursed by rugged hands; But, past the fierce and furious war, Her rising fame new glory brings, For kings and nobles come from far To seek the shelter of her wings. And like thee, rider of the cloud, She mounts the heavens, serene and proud, Great in a pure and noble fame, Great in her spotless champion's name, And destined in her day to be Mighty as Rome-more nobly free.

My native land! my native land!

To whom my thoughts will fondly turn; For her the warmest hopes expand, For her the heart with fears will yearn. Oh! may she keep her eye, like thee, Proud eagle of the rocky wild, Fixed on the sun of liberty,

By rank, by faction, unbeguiled; Remembering still the rugged road

Our venerable fathers trod,

When they through toil and danger pressed,

To gain their glorious bequest,

And from each lip the caution fell

To those who followed, "Guard it well."

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