And thou dost see them rise,
  Star of the Pole! and thou dost see them set. 
    Alone, in thy cold skies,
  Thou keep’st thy old unmoving station yet,
  Nor join’st the dances of that glittering train,
Nor dipp’st thy virgin orb in the blue western main.

    There, at morn’s rosy birth,
  Thou lookest meekly through the kindling air,
    And eve, that round the earth
  Chases the day, beholds thee watching there;
  There noontide finds thee, and the hour that calls
The shapes of polar flame to scale heaven’s azure walls.

    Alike, beneath thine eye,
  The deeds of darkness and of light are done;
    High towards the star-lit sky
  Towns blaze—­the smoke of battle blots the sun—­
  The night-storm on a thousand hills is loud—­
And the strong wind of day doth mingle sea and cloud.

    On thy unaltering blaze
  The half-wrecked mariner, his compass lost,
    Fixes his steady gaze,
  And steers, undoubting, to the friendly coast;
  And they who stray in perilous wastes, by night,
Are glad when thou dost shine to guide their footsteps right.

    And, therefore, bards of old,
  Sages, and hermits of the solemn wood,
    Did in thy beams behold
  A beauteous type of that unchanging good,
  That bright eternal beacon, by whose ray
The voyager of time should shape his heedful way.

THE LAPSE OF TIME.

Lament who will, in fruitless tears,
  The speed with which our moments fly;
I sigh not over vanished years,
  But watch the years that hasten by.

Look, how they come,—­a mingled crowd
  Of bright and dark, but rapid days;
Beneath them, like a summer cloud,
  The wide world changes as I gaze.

What! grieve that time has brought so soon
  The sober age of manhood on! 
As idly might I weep, at noon,
  To see the blush of morning gone.

Could I give up the hopes that glow
  In prospect like Elysian isles;
And let the cheerful future go,
  With all her promises and smiles?

The future!—­cruel were the power
  Whose doom would tear thee from my heart. 
Thou sweetener of the present hour! 
  We cannot—­no—­we will not part.

Oh, leave me, still, the rapid flight
  That makes the changing seasons gay,
The grateful speed that brings the night,
  The swift and glad return of day;

The months that touch, with added grace,
  This little prattler at my knee,
In whose arch eye and speaking face
  New meaning every hour I see;

The years, that o’er each sister land
  Shall lift the country of my birth,
And nurse her strength, till she shall stand
  The pride and pattern of the earth: 

Till younger commonwealths, for aid,
  Shall cling about her ample robe,
And from her frown shall shrink afraid
  The crowned oppressors of the globe.