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Page 16
LINES WRITTEN ON THE PROSPECT OF DEATH.
Sad solitary thought! that keeps thy vigils,
Thy solemn vigils in the sick man's mind;
Communing lonely with his sinking soul,
And musing on the dim obscurity around him!
Thee! rapt in thy dark magnificence, I call
At this still midnight hour, this awful season,
When on my bed in wakeful restlessness,
I turn me, weary: while all around,
All, all, save me, sink in forgetfulness,
I only wake to watch the sickly taper that lights,
Me to my tomb. Yes, 'tis the hand of death
I feel press heavy on my vitals;
Slow sapping the warm current of existence;
My moments now are few! e'en now
I feel the knife, the separating knife, divide
The tender chords that tie my soul
To earth. Yes, I must die, I feel that I _must_ die
And though to me has life been dark and dreary
Though smiling Hope, has lured but to deceive,
And disappointment still pursued its blandishments,
Yet do I feel my soul recoil within me,
As I contemplate the grim gulf,--
The shuddering blank, the awful void futurity.
Aye, I had planned full many a sanguine scheme,
Romantic schemes and fraught with loveliness;
And it is hard to feel the hand of death
Arrest one's steps; throw a chill blast
O'er all one's budding hopes, and hurl one's soul
Untimely to the grave, lost in the gaping gulf
Of blank oblivion. Fifty years hence,
And who will think of Henry? ah, none!
Another busy world of beings will start up
In the interim, and none will hold him
In remembrance. I shall sink as sinks
A stranger in the crowded streets of busy London,
A few enquiries, and the crowds pass on,
And all's forgotten. O'er my grassy grave
The men of future times will careless tread
And read my name upon the sculptured stone;
Nor will the sound, familiar with their ears,
Recall my vanished memory. I had hoped
For better things; I hoped I should not leave
This earth without a vestige. Fate decrees
It shall be otherwise, and I submit.
Henceforth, oh, world! no more of thy desires,
No more of hope, that wanton vagrant hope;
Now higher cares engross me, and my tired soul,
With emulative haste, looks to its God,
And prunes its wings for heaven.
--KIRKE WHITE.
AN EMBARKATION SCENE.
A short time since, I found among other papers, one containing an
account of the embarkation of a few detachments to join their
respective regiments, then engaged in the Burmese war, in India. It
was written almost verbatim, from the description by one, who was not
only an eye witness, but who took an active part in the proceedings of
the morning. As so very many similar and trying scenes are occurring
at the present time, among our devoted countrymen, leaving for the
Crimea, it may not be wholly uninteresting now; as it is founded on
facts, which alas, must be far, very far, out-numbered by parallel
facts and circumstances.
Having business at Gravesend, I arrived there late at night, and took
a bed at an Inn in one of the thoroughfares of that place; I retired
early to rest, and was awakened in the morning by the sound of martial
music; and ever delighting in the "soul-stirring fife and drum," I
jumped out of bed and found it was troops, about to sail for India; I
therefore, dressed myself and strolled down to the beach to witness
what, to me, was quite a novel sight, the embarkation.
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