My never-failing friends are they,

With whom I commune day by day.
With them I take delight in weal,

And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel

How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew'd
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
My thoughts are with the Dead, with them

I live in long-past years,
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,

Partake their hopes and fears ;
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.
My hopes are with the Dead; anon

My place with them will be ;
And I with them shall travel on

Through all futurity;
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.

SOUTHEY.

THE PROSPECT.

Now I gain the mountain's brow,
What a landscape lies below!
No clouds, no vapours

intervene;
But the gay, the open scene,

THE PROSPECT.

45

Does the face of nature shew
In all the hues of heaven's bow,
And, swelling to embrace the light,
Spreads around beneath the sight.

Old castles on the cliffs arise,
Proudly tow’ring in the skies;
Rushing from the woods, the spires
Seem from hence ascending fires;
Half his beams Apollo sheds
On the yellow mountain-heads,
Gilds the fleeces of the flocks,
And glitters on the broken rocks.

Below me trees unnumber'd rise,
Beautiful in various dyes ;
The gloomy pine, the poplar blue,
The yellow beech, the sable yew,
The slender fir, that taper grows,
The sturdy oak, with broad-spread boughs ;
And beyond, the purple grove,
Haunt of Phyllis, queen of love,
Gaudy as th’ op’ning dawn,
Lies along a level lawn ;
On which a dark hill, steep and high,
Holds and charms the wand'ring eye :
Deep are his feet in Towy's flood;
His sides are cloth’d with flowing wood;
And ancient towers crown his brow,
That cast an awful look below;
Whose ragged walls the ivy creeps,
And with her arms from falling keeps :

46

THE PROSPECT.

So both a safety from the wind
On mutual dependence find!

'Tis now the raven's bleak abode
'Tis now th' apartment of the toad ;
And there the fox securely feeds ;
And there the pois' nous adder breeds,
Conceal'd in ruins, moss, and weeds;
While, ever and anon, there fall
Huge heaps of hoary, moulder'd wall.
Yet time has seen—that lifts the low,
And level lays the lofty brow-
Has seen this broken pile complete,
Big with the vanity of state:
But transient is the smile of fate!
A little rule, a little sway,
A sunbeam in a winter's day,
Is all the proud and mighty have
Between the cradle and the grave.

And see the rivers, how they run
Through woods and meads, in shade and sun !
Sometimes swift, sometimes slow,
Wave succeeding wave, they go
A various journey to the deep-
Like human life to endless sleep!
Thus is Nature's vesture wrought,
To instruct our wand'ring thought ;
Thus she dresses

gay,
To disperse our cares away.

green and

DYER.

VILLAGE BELLS.

and seas,

Oh, merry are the village bells that sound with

soothing chime From the dim old tower, grown grey beneath the shadowy touch of time ;

[air, And gaily are they borne along upon the summer Telling of bridal happiness to the youthful and

the fair ; They give a murmur of delight to earth, and sky, That mingles with the running streams, and floats

upon the breeze. 'Tis past, the bridal glee is past, those echoing

peals are o'er; But the sweet, the holy Sabbath comes—we hear

them now once more, With a message from the heavens of love, a voice

that speaks to all ; Unto the temple of our God, unto His shrine they

call. Whether your home's in halls of state, or by the

lowly dells, Come forth and listen to the sounds of the hal

lowed Sabbath bells ! Ye tuneful records, yours it is to watch the pace

of time, And mark the footfalls of each year with deep and

soothing chime;

VILLAGE BELLS.

48 Coming at midnight's silent hour, when all is dim

and drear, 'Tis yours to breathe the last farewell of the sad

expiring year ; And while we bid its hopes and fears, its fleeting

hours adieu, 'Tis yours to hail with cheerful voice the birthday

of the new.

And yet once more your music breaks upon my

listening ear, Though not the gaily sounding notes we love so

well to hear; Changed is your message to the heart, your joyous

tone is fled; Ye speak to us of buried hopes, a requiem for the

dead! Some home to-day is desolate, a soul from earth

is free. Mortal, the knell thou hearest now full soon may

toll for thee!

O changeful bells, that swell'd but now the tide

of human bliss, What ministers of grief ye seem, in such an hour

as this ! Say, is your knell a sorrowing one, for the lovely

doomed to die, Youth's early blush upon their cheek, its radiance

in their eye?