O gentle Reader! you would find A tale in every thing.
What more I have to say is short, And you must kindly take it:
It is no tale; but, should you think, Perhaps a tale you'll make it.
One summer-day I chanced to see This old Man doing all he could To unearth the root of an old tree, A stump of rotten wood.
The mattock tottered in his hand; So vain was his endeavour,
That at the root of the old tree He might have worked for ever.
"You're overtasked, good Simon Lee, Give me your tool," to him I said; And at the word right gladly he Received my proffered aid.
I struck, and with a single blow The tangled root I severed,
At which the poor old Man so long And vainly had endeavoured.
The tears into his eyes were brought, And thanks and praises seemed to run So fast out of his heart, I thought
They never would have done.
-I've heard of hearts unkind, kind deeds With coldness still returning ;
Alas! the gratitude of men
Hath oftener left me mourning.
SEPTEMBER, 1819
DEPARTING Summer hath assumed An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade Unfaded, yet prepared to fade, A timely carolling.
No faint and hesitating trill, Such tribute as to winter chill The lonely redbreast pays!
Clear, loud, and lively is the din, From social warblers gathering in Their harvest of sweet lays.
Nor doth the example fail to cheer Me, conscious that my leaf is sere, And yellow on the bough :-
Fall, rosy garlands, from my head!
Ye myrtle wreaths, your fragrance shed Around a younger brow!
Yet will I temperately rejoice;
Wide is the range, and free the choice Of undiscordant themes;
Which, haply, kindred souls may prize Not less than vernal ecstasies, And passion's feverish dreams.
For deathless powers to verse belong, And they like Demi-gods are strong On whom the Muses smile;
But some their function have disclaimed, Best pleased with what is aptliest framed To enervate and defile.
Not such the initiatory strains Committed to the silent plains In Britain's earliest dawn:
Trembled the groves, the stars grew pale, While all-too-daringly the veil
Of nature was withdrawn!
Nor such the spirit-stirring note When the live chords Alcæus smote,
Inflamed by sense of wrong;
Woe! woe to Tyrants! from the lyre Broke threateningly, in sparkles dire Of fierce vindictive song.
And not unhallowed was the page By winged Love inscribed, to assuage The pangs of vain pursuit;
Love listening while the Lesbian Maid With finest touch of passion swayed Her own Æolian lute.
O ye, who patiently explore The wreck of Herculanean lore, What rapture! could ye seize Some Theban fragment, or unroll One precious, tender-hearted, scroll Of pure Simonides.
That were, indeed, a genuine birth Of poesy; a bursting forth
Of genius from the dust:
What Horace gloried to behold,
What Maro loved, shall we enfold? Can haughty Time be just!
hath been when Earth was proud
Of lustre too intense
To be sustained; and Mortals bowed The front in self-defence.
Who then, if Dian's crescent gleamed, Or Cupid's sparkling arrow streamed While on the wing the Urchin played, Could fearlessly approach the shade? -Enough for one soft vernal day, If I, a bard of ebbing time, And nurtured in a fickle clime, May haunt this hornèd bay; Whose amorous water multiplies The flitting halcyon's vivid dyes; And smooths her liquid breast—to show These swan-like specks of mountain snow, White as the pair that slid along the plains Of heaven, when Venus held the reins!
In youth we love the darksome lawn Brushed by the owlet's wing;
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