Virtue strengthened by Genius.
Often he clasp'd in hope the fleeting maid,
But only clasp'd an unsubstantial shade.
Now up the hill, he turns his headlong course,
And laughs convulsive at the tempest's force;
He gains the height and from the giddy brow,
Beholds the wave roll sullenly below;
No Anna there, rewards his eager sight,
But darker terrors fill the starless night;
His dying hopes are follow'd by despair,
He calls on Death and breathes his frantic prayer,
He murmurs Anna's name, and from the steep,
Leaps in the bosom of the whelming deep!
What vast delights flow on that glowing breast,
By virtue strengthen'd and by Genius blest!
Whate'er in Nature beautiful or grand,
In air, or ocean, or the teeming land,
Meets its full view, excites a joy unknown,
To those whom Genius dashes from her throne.
Genius finds speech in trees; the running brook,
To her speaks language, like a favourite book;
She dresses Nature in her brightest form,
She hears with rapture the descending storm,
She lists the chiming of the falling stream,
Which lulls to sleep and wakes the airy dream;
Enwrapt with solitude she loves to tread
O'er rugged hills, or where the green-woods spread ;
To hear the songsters of the lonely grove,
Breathe their sweet strains of gladness and of love:
She loves the darkness of an aged wood,
The ceaseless uproar of the restive flood,
The sullen grandeur of the mountain's brow
Which throws a shadow on the vales below.
She loves to wander when the moon's soft ray
Treads on the footsteps of departing day,
When heavy sadness hangs upon the gale,
And twilight deepens o'er the dusky vale,---
By haunted waters, or some ruin'd tower,
Which stands the shock of Time's destroying power,
Where the dim owl directs his dusky flight,
And pours his sorrows on the ear of Night.
The song of bards and Wisdom's ancient page,
Which brave the blasts of each succeeding age;
With fond delight she studies and admires,
And glows and kindles at their sacred fires,
She treads on air, she rises on the wind,
And with them leaves the lagging world behind. When solitude o'erhangs the tardy hour,
She finds within herself a social power.
There hovering forms meet her enchanted sight,
And dreams attend the slumbers of the night;
The lonely heath to her is fairy ground,
She bid's Armida's garden smile around;
Her vast designs in solitude she forms,
She hears a spirit* in the desert-storms.
---If thus her joys above the world's dim eye
Roll like the planet in the trackless sky,
If her's are joys which dull souls never know,
She bleeds the subject of severer woe.
On life's sad journey she is doom'd to bear
The sweetest pleasure and the keenest care.
She feels each wound, and every nerve and vein
Thrills to the pressure of neglect and pain.
High are her thoughts, her hopes and her desires,
Highter than thrones her bounding soul aspires,
She looks for gifts she never can obtain,
And grieves to find her fondest visions vain.
She looks on sorrow with a melting eye,
And breathes for man the sympathising sigh.
Unfeeling world, why sufferest thou to roam
Without protection and without an home,
In cheerless shades, unpitied and alone,
Genius---entitled to thy golden throne?
Whence flow that lore and intellectual light
Which cheer thy regions and infuse delight?
The Greeks considered a grove as the sacred retreat of meditation, and early superstition supposed that a deity dwelt amid the shades of solitude.
Whence, but from yon lone fugitive who roves,
And tells her sorrows to the sadful groves,
Whence, but from Genius whose inspiring lays,
Too oft thy malice and thy scorn repays?
---As late I roam'd the Hudson's banks along,
What time the night-bird pour'd his gloomy song:
What time the moon threw her ascending beam
O'er Night's dark bosom and the wizard stream;
I heard this strain---(it now no longer flows
Peace to the ashes of a man of woes!)
Here on this beaten rock, O let me rest!
Breathe thou damp gale upon my throbbing breast!
Roll on bold River, let me hear thee rave,
I love the music of thy silver wave,
Long years have flown since I, a careless boy,
Plung'd in thy waters with a boisterous joy.
Now worn with care, to every joy unknown,
I seek thy shades unpitied and alone.
In early youth my steps were led astray
From Gain's proud temple by the Muse's lay;
From crouded streets and busy throngs I fled
Where woodland-scenes and quiet vallies spread.
Fair Nature's haunts unwearied I explored,
Where sang the stream, where falling waters roar'd.
A fond enthusiast on the mountain's brow,
I heard the echo babble from below.
I lov'd the dingle and the tangled dell,
And crept with silence to her hermit-cell.
Nature I lov'd when cloth'd in mildest charms,
She lur'd sweet Quiet to her fondling arms.
I lov'd her more when with her clouds o'ercast,
She hove the ocean with her yelling blast,
When thunders roll'd from her Creator's hand,
Burst from the skies and shook the wondering land---
I heard entranc'd the Grecian's epic-strain,
Enraptur'd listen'd to the Mantuan swain ;
Rov'd thro' the mazes of poetic lore,
And sigh'd to think the muse had told no more.
Ye bards of old, why did my infant days
Become enchanted with your golden lays?
Why did I listen to the trump of Fame
Which sounded glory on the poet's name?
Why did I flee the bloody fields of war,
Nor meet contention at my country's bar?
Behold the trophies which I now have won,
My works neglected and myself undone.
In place of fame-yon little cottage-shed
Spreads its low shelter on my humbler head,
There buried deep from every human eye,
Unknown, unpitied, ever let me lie.
May no one come to shed the thrilling tear,
And say Eugenio liv'd and perish'd here.
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