Page:The North American Review - Volume 5.djvu/348

338  His harm to compass, and his good oppose? No; one alone, the hapless being spares, Wages no war, and no resistance dares. Yes, earth, kind earth, her new-born son beholds, Spreads a soft shelter, in her robe enfolds, Still, like a mother kind, her love retains, Cheers by her sweetness, with her food sustains, Paints her fair flow’rs to wake his infant smile, Spreads out her fruits to sooth his hour of toil, Renews her prospects, versatile and gay, To charm his eye, and cheat his cares away, And if her roseate buds, a thorn conceal, If some sharp sting the roving hand should feel, A med’cine kind, the sweet physician sends, And where her poison wounds, her balm defends. But when, at last, her drooping charge declines, When the dear lamp of life no longer shines, When o’er its broken idol, friendship mourns, And love, in horrour, from its object turns, E’en while affection shudders, as it grieves, She to her arms, her mould’ring son receives, Sings a low requiem, to her darling birth, ‘Return! thou lov’d one, to thy parent earth.’ Safe in her bosom, the deposit keeps, Until the flame that dries the watery deeps, Spreads o’er the parching skies its quenchless blaze, Reddens her features, on her vitals preys. Then struggling in her last, convulsive throes, She wakes her treasure from his deep repose, Stays her last groan, amid dissolving fires, Resigns him to his Maker, and expires.

that from life, and all its woes

The hand of death shall set me free;

Not that this head, shall then repose

In the low vale most peacefully.

Ah, when I touch time’s farthest brink,

A kinder solace must attend;

It chills my very soul, to think

On that dread hour when life must end.

In vain the flatt’ring verse may breathe,

Of ease from pain, and rest from strife,