And when the evening light decays
And all is calm around,
There is sweet music to his ear
In the distant sheep-bells' sound.
But oh! of all delightful sounds
Of evening or of morn,
The sweetest is the voice of love.
That welcomes his return.
NAY William, nay, not so; the changeful year
In all its due successions to my sight
Presents but varied beauties, transient all,
All in their season good. These fading leaves
That with their rich variety of hues
Make yonder forest in the slanting sun
So beautiful, in you awake the thought
Of winter, cold, drear winter, when these trees
Each like a fleshless skeleton shall stretch
Its bare brown boughs; when not a flower shall spread
Its colours to the day, and not a bird
Carol its joyaunce-but all nature wear
One sullen aspect, bleak and desolate,
To eye, ear, feeling, comfortless alike.
To me their many-coloured beauties speak
Of times of merriment and festival,
The year's best holyday: I call to mind
The school-boy days, when in the falling leaves
I saw with eager hope the pleasant sign
Of coming Christmas, when at morn I took
My wooden kalender, and counting up
Once more its often-told account, smooth'd off
Each day with more delight the daily notch.
To you the beauties of the autumnal year
Make mournful emblems, and you think of man
Doom'd to the grave's long winter, spirit-broke,
Bending beneath the burthen of his years,
Sense-dull'd and fretful, "full of aches and pains,"
Yet clinging still to life. To me they shew
The calm decay of nature, when the mind
Retains its strength, and in the languid eye
Religion's holy hopes kindle a joy
That makes old age look lovely. All to you
Is dark and cheerless; you in this fair world
See some destroying principle abroad,
Air, earth, and water full of living things,
Each on the other preying; and the ways
Of man, a strange perplexing labyrinth,
Where crimes and miseries, each producing each,
Render life loathsome, and destroy the hope
That should in death bring comfort. Oh my frien
That thy faith were as mine! that thou couldst see
Death still producing life, and evil still
Working its own destruction; couldst behold
The strifes and tumults of this troubled world
With the strong eye that sees the promised day
Dawn through this night of tempest! all things then
Would minister to joy; then should thine heart
Be healed and harmonized, and thou shouldst feel
God, always, everywhere, and all in all.
THOU chronicle of crimes! I read no more-
For I am one who willingly would love
His fellow kind. O gentle poesy,
Receive me from the court's polluted scenes,
From dungeon horrors, from the fields of war,
Receive me to your haunts,-that I may nurse
My nature's better feelings, for my soul
Sickens at man's misdeeds!
I spake when lo!
She stood before me in her majesty,
Clio, the strong-eyed muse. Upon her brow
Sate a calm anger. Go-young man, she cried,
Sigh among myrtle bowers, and let thy soul.
Effuse itself in strains so sorrowful sweet,
That love-sick maids may weep upon thy page
In most delicious sorrow. Oh shame! shame!
Was it for this I waken'd thy young mind?
Was it for this I made thy swelling heart
Throb at the deeds of Greece, and thy boy's eye
So kindle when that glorious Spartan died?
Boy! boy! deceive me not! what if the tale
Of murder'd millions strike a chilling pang,
What if Tiberius in his island stews,
And Philip at his beads, alike inspire
Strong anger and contempt; hast thou not risen
With nobler feelings? with a deeper love
For freedom? Yes-most righteously thy soul
Loathes the black history of human crimes
And human misery! let that spirit fill
Thy song, and it shall teach thee, boy! to raise
Strains such as Cato might have deign'd to hear,
As Sidney in his hall of bliss may love.
STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE FIRST OF
DECEMBER, 1793.
THOUGH now no more the musing ear
Delights to listen to the breeze,
That lingers o'er the green wood shade,
I love thee, winter! well.
Sweet are the harmonies of spring,
Sweet is the summer's evening gale,
And sweet the autumnal winds that shake
The many-coloured grove.
And pleasant to the sobered soul
The silence of the wintry scene,
When nature shrouds her in her trance
In deep tranquillity.
Not undelightful now to roam
The wild heath sparkling on the sight;
Not undelightful now to pace
The forest's ample rounds;
And see the spangled branches shine,
And mark the moss of many a hue
That varies the old tree's brown bark,
Or o'er the gray stone spreads.
And mark the clustered berries bright
Amid the holly's gay green leaves;
The ivy round the leafless oak
That clasps its foliage close.
So virtue diffident of strength
Clings to religion's firmer aid,
And by religion's aid upheld
Endures calamity.
Nor void of beauties now the spring,
Whose waters hid from summer sun
Have soothed the thirsty pilgrim's ear
With more than melody.
The green moss shines with icy glare;
The long grass bends its spear-like form;
And lovely is the silvery scene
When faint the sun-beams smile.
Reflection, too, may love the hour
When nature, hid in winter's grave,
No more expands the bursting bud,
Or bids the flowret bloom.
For nature soon in spring's best charms Shall rise revived from winter's grave, Again expand the bursting bud,
And bid the flowret bloom.
STANZAS WRITTEN ON THE FIRST OF
JANUARY, 1794.
COME melancholy moralizer, come!
Gather with me the dark and wintry wreath;
With me engarland now
The sepulchre of Time!
Come, moralizer, to the funeral song!
I pour the dirge of the departed days;
For well the funeral song
Befits this solemn hour.
But hark! even now the merry bells ring round
With clamorous joy to welcome in this day,
This consecrated day,
Mortal! whilst fortune with benignant hand
Fills to the brim thy cup of happiness,
Whilst her unclouded sun
Illumes thy summer day,
Canst thou rejoice,-rejoice that time flies fast?
That night shall shadow soon thy summer sun?
That swift the stream of years
If thou hast wealth to gratify each wish,
If power be thine, remember what thou art!
Remember thou art man,
And death thine heritage!
Hast thou known love! doth beauty's better sun Cheer thy fond heart with no capricious smile, Her eye all eloquence,
Oh state of happiness!-hark how the gale Moans deep and hollow o'er the leafless grove! Winter is dark and cold;
Where now the charms of spring!
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