Old Chaucer slowly sunk at last to night;
Still shall his forceful line, his varied strain,
A firmer, nobler monument remain,
When the high grass waves o'er thy lonely site;
And yet the cankering tooth of envious age
Has sapp'd the fabric of his lofty rhyme;
Though genius still shall ponder o'er the page,
And piercing through the shadowy mist of time, The festive Bard of Edward's court recall,
As fancy paints the pomp that once adorn'd thy wall.
As slow and solemn yonder deepening knell
Tolls through the sullen evening's shadowy gloom,
Alone and pensive, in my silent room,
On man and on mortality I dwell.
And as the harbinger of death I hear,
Frequent and full, much do I love to muse On life's distemper'd scenes of hope and fear; And passion varying her chameleon hues, And man pursuing pleasure's empty shade,
'Till death dissolves the vision. So the child In youth's gay morn with wondering pleasure smil'd, As with the shining ice well-pleas'd he play'd; Nor, as he grasps the crystal in his play, Heeds how the faithless bauble melts away.
My friendly fire, thou blazest clear and bright,
Nor smoke nor ashes soil thy grateful flame;
Thy temperate splendour cheers the gloom of night,
Thy genial heat enlivens the chill'd frame.
I love to muse me o'er the evening hearth,
I love to pause in meditation's sway;
And whilst each object gives reflection birth,
Mark thy brisk rise, and see thy slow decay:
And I would wish, like thee, to shine serene,
Like thee, within mine influence, all to cheer;
And wish at last, in life's declining scene,
As I had beam'd as bright, to fade as clear:
So might my children ponder o'er my shrine,
And o'er my ashes muse, as I will muse o'er thine.
UNGRATEFUL he who pluckt thee from thy stalk,
Poor faded flow'ret! On his careless way,
Inhal'd awhile thine odours on his walk,
Then past along, and left thee to decay.
Thou melancholy emblem! had I seen
Thy modest beauties dew'd with evening's gem,
I had not rudely cropt thy parent stem,
But left thy blossom still to grace the green;
And now I bend me o'er thy wither'd bloom,
And drop the tear, as fancy, at my side
Deep-sighing, points the fair frail Emma's tomb;
"Like thine, sad flower! was that poor wanderer's pride! Oh, lost to love and truth! whose selfish joy Tasted her vernal sweets, but tasted to destroy."
SAD songstress of the night, no more I hear
Thy soften'd warblings meet my pensive ear,
As by thy wonted haunts again I rove;
Why art thou silent? Wherefore sleeps thy lay?
For faintly fades the sinking orb of day,
And yet thy music charms no more the grove.
The shrill bat flutters by; from yon dark tower
The shrieking owlet hails the shadowy hour;
Hoarse hums the beetle as he drones along,
The hour of love is flown! thy full-fledg'd brood
No longer need thy care to cull their food,
And nothing now remains to prompt the song:
But drear and sullen seems the silent grove,
No more responsive to the lay oí love.
HENCE, busy torturer, wherefore should mine eye
Revert again to many a sorrow past?
Hence, busy torturer, to the happy fly,
Those who have never seen the sun o'ercast
By one dark cloud, thy retrospective beam,
Serene and soft, may on their bosoms gleam,
As the last splendour of the summer sky.
Let them look back on pleasure, ere they know
To mourn its absence; let them contemplate
The thorny windings of our mortal state,
Ere unexpected bursts the cloud of woe;
Stream not on me thy torch's baneful glow,
Like the sepulchral lamp's funereal gloom,
In darkness glimmering to disclose a tomb.
ON yon wild waste of ruin thron'd, what form
Beats her swoln breast, and tears her unkempt hair?
Why seems the spectre thus to court the storm?
Why glare her full-fix'd eyes in stern despair?
The deep dull groan I hear,
I see her rigid eye refuse the soothing tear.
Ah! fly her dreadful reign,
For desolation rules o'er all the lifeless plain; For deadliest nightshade forms her secret bower, For oft the ill-omen'd owl
Yells loud the dreadful howl,
And the night spectres shriek amid the midnight hour.
Pale spectre, Grief! thy dull abodes I know,
I know the horrors of thy barren plain,
I know the dreadful force of woe,
I know the weight of thy soul-binding chain;
But I have fled thy drear domains,
Have broke thy agonizing chains,
Drain'd deep the poison of thy bowl,
Yet wash'd in Science' stream the poison from my soul.
Fair smiles the morn along the azure sky,
Calm and serene the zephyrs whisper by,
And many a flow'ret gems the painted plain;
As down the dale, with perfumes sweet,
The cheerful pilgrim turns his feet,
His thirsty ear imbibes the throstle's strain;
And every bird that loves to sing
The choral song to coming spring,
Tunes the wild lay symphonious through the grove,
Heaven, earth, and nature, all incite to love.
Ah, pilgrim! stay thy heedless feet,
Distrust each soul-subduing sweet,
Dash down alluring pleasure's deadly bowl,
For through thy frame the venom'd juice will creep,
Lull reason's powers to sombrous sleep,
And stain with sable hue the spotless soul;
For soon the valley's charms decay,
In haggard grief's ill-omen'd sway,
And barren rocks shall hide the cheering light of day: Then reason strives in vain,
Extinguish'd hope's enchanting beam for aye,
And virtue sinks beneath the galling chain, And sorrow deeply drains her lethal bowl, And sullen fix'd despair benumbs the nerveless soul.
Yet on the summit of yon craggy steep
Stands Hope, surrounded with a blaze of light;
She bids the wretch no more despondent weep,
Or linger in the loathly realms of night;
And Science comes, celestial maid!
As mild as good she comes to aid,
To smooth the rugged steep with magic power, And fill with many a wile the longly-lingering hour.
Fair smiles the morn, in all the hues of day
Array'd, the wide horizon streams with light;
Anon the dull mists blot the living ray,
And darksome clouds presage the stormy night: Yet may the sun anew extend his ray,
Anew the heavens may shine in splendour bright; Anew the sunshine gild the lucid plain,
And nature's frame reviv'd, may thank the genial rain.
And what, my friend, is life?
What but the many-weather'd April day.
Now darkly dimm'd by clouds of strife,
Now glowing in propitious fortune's ray;
Let the reed yielding bend its weakly form,
For, firm in rooted strength, the oak defies the storm.
If thou hast plann'd the morrow's dawn to roam
O'er distant hill or plain,
Wilt thou despond in sadness at thy home,
Whilst heaven drops down the rain?
Or will thy hope expect the coming day,
When bright the sun may shine with unremitted ray?
Wilt thou float careless down the stream of time,
In sadness borne to dull oblivion's shore,
Or shake off grief, and "build the lofty rhyme,"
And live 'till Time himself shall be no more?
If thy light bark have met the storm,
If threatening clouds the sky deform,
Let honest truth be vain; look back on me,
Have I been "sailing on a summer's sea"?
Have only zephyrs fill'd my swelling sails,
As smooth the gentle vessel glides along?
Lycon, I met unscar'd the wintry gales,
And sooth'd the dangers with the song:
So shall the vessel sail sublime,
And reach the port of fame adown the stream of time.
AND does my friend again demand the strain,
Still seek to list the sorrow-soothing lay?
Still would he hear the woe-worn heart complain,
When melancholy loads the lingering day?
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