O say of what has pride and power
On life's low vale to boast ?
Poor Flutterers! they but live their hour, Then mingle with the dust,
For so in life's delightful morn,
Fair laughs the sunny eye,
To some few hours of joyance born,
Beneath a cloudless sky.
So swift is pass'd our little day,
And such our transient doom;
Here let us pause, nor dare to say
What lies beyond the tomb.
Come mute remembrancer of her, the Maid,
From whom in joyless hour I sigh'd to part,
In whose blue eye the laughing loves have played
And aim'd their recreant arrows at my heart.
Come and enfold my throbbing temples round,
And shroud me from the Summer's noon tide ray,
While I to many a distant haven bound,
Thoughtless of all but her, pursue my way.
When faint with toil and weary, I am laid,
Beneath some spreading tree, or sheltering bower,
With thee I'll slumber on the green-turf shade,
Safe from the humming gnat-fly's tyrant power.
Then will some courteous Sprite of Dreams renew
Those rapid hours I tasted once of bliss ;
When rose united on my raptur'd view
The kindred forms of her and happiness.
Go gentle Veil, and seek the spotless Fair,
Tell her my days are days of sorrow here;
Of blasted youth the mournful story bear,
And bid soft Pity drop one passing tear.
Tell her in thought I visit oft the shore,
Where hope once whisper'd the impassion'd tale,
And say though haply we may meet no more
Still on those scenes remembrance loves to dwell.
Tell her on many a giddy height I've stood,
And fearless stemm'd the vast unmeasur'd tide;
Yet never has the threatening Ocean flood
Recall'd my wandering Spirit from her side.
Tell her-but no, from thee I'll never part,
Faithful companion of my careless road;
Her hands first form'd thee-come then, next my heart
Thou mute memorial, be thy lov'd abode.
To a BROTHER,
Who had been afflicted with a long Sickness.
My Brother thou hast led a weary life,
A life of pain, and sleeplessness and woe,
So that thy mind pent in its burthen'd flesh
Hath often paus'd, and slept a sleep like death!
My Brother and my Friend-what shall I say
(Now that the weary glooms of winter come,
And find thee still stretch'd on a sick-man's bed)
To give thee aught of solace? Far from thee,
I hear the drippings of the twilight shower,
And the faint bodings of the wind which dwells
With nights of winter; far from thee I draw
My evening curtain, trim my fire, and light
My solitary taper; yet I think
On former days, and scenes of former love,
On many pleasures, and on many pains,
That we have felt in common: these will still
Croud in the visions of my soul, and bring
To my hearth's quietness, (when nought is heard
Save the faint startings of the ember, now
Glowing with permanent red) some shapes that live,
Like fleecy clouds in April sun-beams drest;
Till suddenly the meditating part
Will question of their being.
And visited by sorrows many and hard,
Thou'rt jostled through life's strange disorder'd mass !
That miracle which makes a wise man pause
At every day's report. Nor troubled less,
Thou wildlier buffetted, and with more strange,
And various shiftings, he, who fain this hour
Would dedicate his heart to thee! my Friend,
Different the means, though verging to one end;
Thou lyest on the bed of pain, and feel'st
The heart's faint fever, and the sickening thought
Pall'd with all living things; and I have known
A sudden pause, even in their mid career
Of joy and hope, I have been vex'd with wounds
Man may not heal, belike to both the same
Instruction given, the quietness induced,
The acquiescence to the will supreme,
The sovereign spirit sanctifying pain,
And mingling balsams with the cup of death.
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