Dejected sighs the wintry night away,
And lonely muses all the summer day:
Her gallant sons, who, smit with honour's charms,
Pursued the phantom Fame through war's alarms.
Return no more; stretch'd on Hindostan's plain,
Or sunk beneath the unfathomable main;
In vain her eyes the watery waste explore
For heroes, fated to return no more!
Let others bless the morning's reddening beam,
Foe to her peace-it breaks the illusive dream,
That, in their prime of manly bloom confest,
Restored the long-lost warriors to her breast,
And, as they strove, with smiles of filial love,
Their widow'd parent's anguish to remove,
Through her small casement broke the intrusive day
And chased the pleasing images away.
No time can e'er her banish'd joys restore,
For, ah! a heart once broken heals no more.
The dewy beams that gleam from Pity's eye,
The 'still small voice of sacred sympathy,
In vain the mourner's sorrows would beguile,
Or steal from weary woe one languid smile;
Yet what they can, they do-the scanty store,
So often open'd for the wandering poor,
To her each cottager complacent deals,
While the kind glance the melting heart reveals;
And still, when evening streaks the west with gold,
The milky tribute from the lowing fold
With cheerful haste officious children bring,
And every smiling flower that decks the spring:
Ah! little know the fond attentive train,
That spring and flowerets smile for her in vain :
Yet hence they learn to reverence modest woe,
And of their little all a part bestow.
Let those to wealth and proud distinction born,
With the cold glance of insolence and scorn
Regard the suppliant wretch, and harshly grieve
The bleeding heart their bounty would relieve;
Far different these; while from a bounteous heart
With the poor sufferer they divide a part;
Humbly they own that all they have is given
A boon precarious from indulgent Heaven:
And the next blighted crop or frosty spring,
Themselves to equal indigence may bring.
CCLIII. WILL. GIFFORD, 1756—1826.
I WISH I WAS WHERE ANNA LIES.
I wish I was where Anna lies,
For I am sick of lingering here;
And every hour Affection cries,
"Go and partake her humble bier."
I wish I could; for when she died,
I lost my all; and life has proved,
Since that sad hour, a dreary void,
A waste unlovely and unloved.
But who, when I am turn'd to clay,
Shall duly to her grave repair,
And pluck the ragged moss away,
And weeds, that have "no business there.'
And who with pious hand shall bring
The flowers she cherish'd, snowdrops cold,
The violets that unheeded spring,
To scatter o'er her hallow'd mould?
And who, while Memory loves to dwell
Upon her name for ever dear,
Shall feel his heart with passion swell,
And pour the bitter, bitter tear ?
I did it; and, would fate allow,
Should visit still, should still deplore;
But health and strength have left me now,
And I, alas, can weep no more.
Take then, sweet maid, this simple strain,
The last I offer at thy shrine;
Thy grave must then undeck'd remain,
And all thy memory fade with mine.
And can thy soft persuasive look,
Thy voice, that might with music vie,
Thy air, that every gazer took,
Thy matchless eloquence of eye;
Thy spirits frolicsome as good,
Thy courage, by no ills dismay'd,
Thy patience, by no wrongs subdued,
Thy gay good-humour, can they fade?
Perhaps But sorrow dims my eye:
Cold turf, which I no more must view.
Dear name, which I no more must sigh,
A long, a last, a sad adieu.
CCLIV. DR JOHN BIDLAKE, 1755—1***.
How grateful now to trace the devious course
Of some wild pastoral stream, that changes oft
Its varied lapse; and ever as it winds,
Enchantment follows, and new beauties rise.
O Nature! lovely Nature! thou canst give
Delight thyself a thousand ways, and lend
To every object charms! With thee, e'en brooks
A higher relish gain. The poet's lay
Grows sweeter in the shade of wavy woods,
Or lulling lapse of crystal stream beside;
Dim umbrage lends to philosophic lore
Severer thought; and meditation leads
Her pupil, wisdom, to the green resort
Of solemn silence, her inspiring school.
CCLV. SAMUEL CROXALL, 17**—17**.
THE MIDSUMMER WISH.
Waft me, some soft and cooling breeze,
To Windsor's shady kind retreat,
Where sylvan scenes, wide-spreading trees,
Repel the dog-star's raging heat:
Where tufted grass and mossy beds
Afford a rural calm repose:
Where woodbines hang their dewy heads,
And fragrant sweets around disclose.
Old oozy Thames, that flows fast by,
Along the smiling valley plays;
His glassy surface cheers the eye,
And thro' the flow'ry meadow strays.
His fertile banks with herbage green,
His vales with golden plenty swell;
Where'er his purer streams are seen,
The gods of health and pleasure dwell.
Let me thy clear, thy yielding wave
With naked arm once more divide,
In thee my glowing bosom lave,
And cut the gently rolling tide.
CCLVI. JOHN PH. KEMBLE, 1757-1823.
TO THE MEMORY OF MR INCHBALD.
What time the weak-eyed owl, on twilight wing
Slow borne, her vesper screamed to eve, and roused
The lazy wing of bat,
With beetle's sullen hum,
Friendship, and she, the maid of pensive mien,
Pale Melancholy, point my sorrowing steps
To meditate the dead,
And give my friend a tear.
Here let me pause-and pay that tear I owe :
Silent it trickles down my cheek, and drops
Upon the recent sod
That lightly clasps his heart:
But ah! how vain!-Nor Flattery's power, nor Wealth's, Nor Friendship's tear, nor widowed Anna's voice, Sweet as the harps of heaven,
Can move the tyrant Death.
Hence, ye impure!-for hark! around his grave
The Sisters chaste, the Sisters whom he loved,
In nine-fold cadence chaunt
Immortal harmony.
'Tis done-'tis done the well-earned laurel spreads
Its verdant foliage o'er his honoured clay :
Again the Muses sing-
Thalia's was the deed.
Thou honest man, farewell! I would not stain
Thy worth with praise, yet not the bright-haired King,
Who woos the rosy morn,
And westering skirts the sky
With ruddy gold and purple, e'er shall see
Thy likeness-nor yon paly Crescent call
Her weeping dews to kiss
A turf more loved than thine.
CCLVII. WILL. SOTHEBY, 1757-1833.
1. ROME.
Rome, thou art doom'd to perish, and thy days,
Like mortal man's, are number'd, number'd all,
Ere each fleet hour decays.
Though pride yet haunts thy palaces, though art.
Thy sculptur'd marbles animate:
Though thousands and ten thousands throng thy gate;
Though kings and kingdoms with thy idol mart
Yet traffic, and thy throned priest adore;
Thy second reign shall pass-pass like thy reign of yore!
2. GROTTO OF EGERIA.
Seek in the glen, yon heights between,
A rill more pure than Hippocrene,
That from a sacred fountain fed
The stream that filled its marble bed.
Its marble bed long since is gone,
And the stray water struggles on,
Brawling through weeds and stones its way.
There, when o'erpowered at blaze of day,
Nature languishes in light,
Pass within the gloom of night,
Where the cool grot's dark arch o'ershades
Thy temples, and the waving braids
Of many a fragrant brier that weaves
Its blossom through the ivy leaves.
Thou too, beneath that rocky roof,
Where the moss mats its thickest woof,
Shalt hear the gather'd ice-drops fall
Regular, at interval,
Drop after drop, one after one,
Making music on the stone,
While every drop, in slow decay,
Wears the recumbent nymph away.
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