'Tis sweet, poor Boy! and yet 'tis pain,
Though life and hope are sled, e'en now
To cling with rapture, long and vain,
Upon thy moistened cheek and brow ;
Until we fancy that a gleam
Again hath lit that glazing eye,
And call upon thy lips, and dream
We hear those lifeless lips reply.
Yet, while the words are on my tongue,
Corruption awes me! and aside
I shrink from that to which I clung,
And feel what love would wish to hide.
And, while thy cold remains we lay
To sleep beneath their colder stone,
I turn me from the frame's decay,
To muse on that which knoweth none.
Unhurt, undying, undecayed,
Thy soul exists beyond the tomb
And, while I wander down the glade,
Whose beauties now are wrapt in gloom,
Thy spirit comes at evening's hour,
And thus it says, or seems to say:
“Lament not, though the cherished flower
IIath bloomed and faded in a day;
“And let not them that gave me birth,
And let not her that closed my eyes,
Weep o'er me in my bed of earth,
Or sorrow at my obsequies!
“The rays of Heaven around me shine,—
Why should they pine in earthly cares?
Eternity of bliss is mine,—
Why should a moment's pang be theirs?”
(1821.)
IF when with thee I feel and speak
What not with others I have felt and spoken,
It is not for the beauty of thy cheek,
Nor for thy forehead fair,
Nor for the dark locks quietly sleeping there,
Nor for thy words of kindness, Friendship's
token ;
But rather, that I trace
Passion and purity in that meaning face ;
And that thy brow is stamped with feeling
Such as mocks the tongue's revealing,
And that I see in thy young soul
A breathing part of that celestial Whole,
And that thou art a Poet, and the son
Of an Immortal one
(CAMBRIDGE, December, 1821.)
PRIZE POEMS, TRANSLATIONS,
THE sun is high in heaven; a favouring breeze
Fills the white sail, and sweeps the rippling
SeaS,
And the tall vessel walks her destined way,
And rocks and glitters in the curling spray.
Among the shrouds, all happiness and hope,
The busy seaman coils the rattling rope,
And tells his jest, and carols out his song,
And laughs his laughter, vehement and long;
Or pauses on the deck, to dream awhile
Of his babes' prattle, and their mother's smile,
And nods the head, and waves the welcome hand,
To those who weep upon the lessening strand.
His is the roving step and humour dry, His the light laugh, and his the jocund eye; And his the feeling, which, in guilt or grief, Makes the sin venial, and the sorrow brief. But there are hearts, that merry deck below, Of darker error, and of deeper woe, Children of wrath and wretchedness, who grieve Not for the country, but the crimes they leave,
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