SONNETS, BY DR JOHN LEYDEN. 1. SABBATH MORNING. HAIL to the placid venerable morn, That slowly wakes while all the fields are still; A pensive calm on every breeze is borne, A graver murmur gurgles from the rill, And echo answers softer from the hill; While softer sings the linnet from the thorn, The sky-lark warbles in a tone less shrill. Hail, light serene! hail, holy Sabbath morn! The gales that lately sigh'd along the grove' The sun a mild but solemn lustre throws ; 2. ON PARTING WITH A FRIEND. WHILE far, dear friend, your parting steps recede, Yet sure too soon, thou brother of my heart, Too soon by nature's rigid laws we part; 3. MEMORY. WHEN I with antiquarian care review The earliest lines in Memory's tablet traced, When Pleasure's signs I vainly would renew; While each fond thought that once my mind solaced, O'er symbols strange, and hieroglyphics rude, The sage thus pores with keen creative eye, 4. TO THE LARK. HAR! how the merry lark's sweet carols ring, But see what clouds invest the face of day; So sunk my heart before the saddening throng 5. TO A MOSSY GRAVESTONE IN CAVERS CHURCHYARD. WHERE waves the grass beneath yon cypress shade, grassy rind to fade. Yet there the peasant's sober steps shall pass, Whene'er the sacred Sabbath morn shall rise, And the slow bell to morning prayer shall toll And while his staff divides the rustling grass, "Here sleeps a youth unknown to fame," he cries; "Calm be his sleep, and heaven receive his soul!" Thou, like a hermit sad and sage, Where times o'erflown their annals cast: And thou, that saw'st them wear away, For Time thy giant strength has tried, Ere long, the vernal year, in vain, Shall seek this trembling shade of thine ; Thee to infoliate, ne'er again Shall Spring her freshest garland twine. The presage of thy slow decline O'er all thy silver'd bark is plain Inscribed, in many a fatal sign, Portentous of thy ruined reign. But, sure, a whisper faintly broke, Was it the Spirit of the Oak, Or Fancy haunting there, With seeming voice-Again it spoke ! Nor mortal hearing dare To still the echoes it awoke, Or bid its tongue forbear. "Child of the dust! to being sprung Long since these boughs with age were bent, Thy useless lay is idly sung, Thy breath in vain conjecture spent. "What though with ancient pomp I wear What though in dryad lore I bear "Thee little it imports to hear, How, o'er the waning orb of time, Fleet ages dawn and disappear, Revolving in their course sublime. "The voice of years would tire to tell What desolating waste has been ; What generations rose and fell Since erst these aged limbs were green. "For swift as o'er the changing skies Sunshine and winter whirlwinds sweep, The mortal race to being rise, And rest them in their slumber deep: "Some in the early bud are reft, And some in blossom immature; Of those to summer ripeness left, How few till Nature's fall endure! "For countless are the forms of fate That lurk in silent ambushment, The term so brief to antedate, To quench the flame so quickly spent. "O seek not, in the dust of years, The fragments strew'd by man's decay; Enough in every hour appears, To tell that all things wear away. "Even while the curious search is gone "For it is not the rushing flight Of seasons soaring to the sun; "It is the sand that hourly keeps "The winds in destined courses fly, |