Poets Corner.

Auckland Chronicle and New Zealand Colonist, Volume 2, Issue 66, 7 November 1844, Page 4

Poets Corner.

OH! THAT I HAD THE WINGS OF A DOVE. Times there will be ev'n with the worldliest, When life, however prosperous its course, And all its cares, tbo' not employed in vain, And all its joys, tho' our best hopes surpassing, Will to the heart grow suddenly distasteful; When of the earth the spirit all at once Will weary; yearning for the dove's soft wing To " flee away, and be at rest for ever;" And is it strange when caught is out of time. In the mixed harmonics that make life's music, The spirit should grow listless—sigh for sounds Of its own dreaming forms of its own shaping ? §J No—'tis the aspiration of the soul better than the best affords below ; panting for the perfect—more intense From taste of the imperfect—'tis the quickening , Of the immortal birth witin, that swells "Afad struggles to be free before its time ! But if the sonl would quit its earthly shell, When cast on none but smooth and pleasant shores, How deep its pinings for enfranchisement When storms bave beat down all its brightest hopes, When sudden blight has come upon its blossoms And turned into a wilderness that earth Which hitherto had seemed a lesser Eden, And (but for dreamings of a fairer future,) And Eden all sufficient—oh ! who then Feels not a heart-sick longing for release— A weight that makes the spirit droop and flutter, l Unnerving it for earth—till down it sinks ITo rise no more—save on a Heavenly wing ! W,B.