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Whose love, in its undying prime,

Is furthest from repining;
For I take constant note of time
Where the sun is ever shining.

1839.

B

SONNET.

BETCHWORTH AVENUE-I.

ETCHWORTH! thy stately avenue is fraught
With imagery of some saintly pile,

Whose long-drawn perspective of nave and aisle
From architecture such as thine was caught.
O'erhead thy roof is branched, as though by rule;
Here voices sink to whispers of amaze,
And footsteps fall with reverence; the deep cool
Startles the senses in these sultry days.

And lo, one sunbeam! which the half-shut eye
Untwines to hairs and threads of fibrous light
Of nameless colours, than which none more bright
Through painted oriels stream: around, on high,
This hum of bees-how like the organ's tone
Reverberate from cathedral stems of stone!

SONNET.

BETCHWORTH AVENUE-II.

H

OW the wild winter's desecrating powers

Have marred thy saintly features! sight nor
sound

Of summer months remains, above, around,
To tempt the Muse to linger here for hours.
By many an eddying whirl-blast downward shook,
Dead leaves, and twigs, and plumes of native rook,
In homeward musterings dropped at close of day,
By wandering hoofs are crushed, and trod in clay.
Brown horror o'er the whole will soon be flung;
And the mysterious owl on pinions gray
Down the long vista sails, a wingèd face;
And now, reposing in her wonted place,
Shouts from the tod of matted ivy spray,
Above yon bank with darkling laurels hung.

SONNET-RECOVERY.

DECEMBER 1839.

LADY, the friends who annually meet

Under thy much loved roof, together greet

Thee, chained no longer to a weary bed,

With anxious pain confused, and throbbing head,
But risen to joy and health. Sad thoughts, farewell!
Welcome all thoughts drawn freshening from the Well
Of Life, now in the time in which the Son

Of God our frail mortality put on,

In great humility to seek and save

Lost humankind, and triumph o'er the grave.

Thanks, gracious Power, that dost our dwellings cheer
With health of mind and body, peace and love,

Albeit fierce storms darken the skies above
In this wild season of the closing year!

E

THE SHORTEST DAY.

ARLY sloping to its place of refuge see the solar

car;

Coasting like a vessel guided by some fearful mariner. The eaves, that dripped in noontide sun-thaw, at the chill approach of night

Are hung with many a bead, and jagged with many an icy stalactite.

Now a star, and now another; now a constellated

braid

Peeps out; and now the firmament with golden patines

is inlaid,

From Aldebaran peering o'er the horizon with his golden eye,

To the Bear, and Cassiopeia, in the circumpolar sky. 'Tis time to quit the frost-bound fields, and garden desolate with snow,

For the shelter of our roof-tree, for the cheerful fire

side glow;

For the hearth domestic, centre of all blithesome re

creation;

Yet at solemn Epochs consecrate to loftier meditation.

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