What soothes the little sufferer now?
Ah! music pours its strain,-
With smiles his dying features glow,
The child forgets his pain!
And his small feeble hand with care
Beats time to his own favourite air.
It play'd-that simple careless tune,
While numbers pass'd it by;
But ever as those notes begun,
His pale cheek flush'd with joy;
And his bright eye his father's sought,
With all its childish pleasure fraught.
The organ past—and all forgot,
The music fled away;
But the young sufferer knew the spot,
And the accustom'd day;
And ever, as it took its round,
His heart was soothed with that sweet sound.
But ah! glad strains, and tender cares,
From death may never save;
Soon, torn from all sweet sounds, he shares
The silence of the grave;
And, with a cold and breaking heart,
The father sees his child depart.
He takes him to his tomb-and then,
All steep'd in speechless woe,
Returns unto his home again,
But not one tear will flow:
The lonely room—the vacant seat,
His eyes in silent stupor meet.
What stirs him from his deep despair?
What wakens all his heart?
It plays again that simple air-
And tears like rain-drops start;
In every note-in every tone,
He feels his child again his own.
And thoughts of tenderness and love
Creep softly o'er his grief,
And draw his spirit far above
A world so sad and brief:
The airs of heaven are in his ear-
His child in angel-light is near!
ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON
YE distant spires, ye antique towers,
That crown the wat'ry glade,
Where grateful Science still adores
Her Henry's holy shade;
And ye, that from the stately brow
Of Windsor's heights th' expanse below
Of grove, of lawn, of mead survey,
Whose turf, whose shade, whose flow'rs among
Wanders the hoary Thames along
His silver-winding way!
Ah happy hills! ah pleasing shade!
Ah fields beloved in vain!
Where once my careless childhood stray'd,
A stranger yet to pain!
I feel the gales that from you blow
A momentary bliss bestow;
As waving fresh their gladsome wing,
My weary soul they seem to soothe,
And, redolent of joy and youth,
To breathe a second spring.
Say, father Thames, for thou hast seen
Full many a sprightly race,
Disporting on thy margent green,
The paths of pleasure trace;
Who foremost now delight to cleave,
With pliant arms thy glassy wave?
The captive linnet which enthral ?
What idle progeny succeed
To chase the rolling circle's speed,
Or urge the flying ball?
While some on earnest business bent
Their murmuring labours ply
'Gainst grave hours that bring constraint To sweeten liberty:
Some bold adventurers disdain
The limits of their little reign,
And unknown regions dare descry:
Still as they run they look behind,
They hear a voice in ev'ry wind,
And snatch a fearful joy.
Gay hope is theirs, by fancy fed,
Less pleasing when possest;
The tear forgot as soon as shed,
The sunshine of the breast:
Theirs buxom health of rosy hue,
Wild wit, invention ever new,
And lively cheer, of vigour born;
The thoughtless day, the easy night,
The spirits pure, the slumbers light,
That fly th' approach of morn.
Alas! regardless of their doom,
The little victims play!
No sense have they of ills to come,
Nor care beyond to-day:
Yet see, how all around them wait
The ministers of human fate,
And black Misfortune's baleful train!
Ah, show them where in ambush stand,
To seize their prey, the murd'rous band!
Ah, tell them they are men!
These shall the fury passions tear,
The vultures of the mind,
Disdainful anger, pallid fear,
And shame that skulks behind;
Or pining love shall waste their youth,
Or jealousy with rankling tooth,
That inly gnaws the secret heart;
And envy wan, and faded care,
Grim-visaged comfortless despair,
And sorrow's piercing dart,
Ambition this shall tempt to rise;
Then whirl the wretch from high,
To bitter scorn a sacrifice,
And grinning infamy.
And stings of falsehood those shall try,
And hard unkindness' alter'd eye,
That mocks the tear it forced to flow;
And keen remorse with blood defiled,
And moody madness laughing wild
Amid severest woe.
Lo! in the vale of years, beneath,
A grisly troop are seen,
The painful family of Death,
More hideous than their queen;
This racks the joints, this fires the veins,
That ev'ry labouring sinew strains,
Those in the deeper vitals rage:
Lo! poverty to fill the band,
That'numbs the soul with icy hand;
And slow-consuming age.
To each his suff'rings: all are men,
Condemn'd alike to groan;
The tender for another's pain,
Th' unfeeling for his own.
Yet, ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late,
And happiness too swiftly flies,
Thought would destroy their paradise.
No more-where ignorance is bliss,
"T is folly to be wise.
CLIME of the unforgotten brave!
Whose land from plain to mountain-cave
Was Freedom's home or Glory's grave-
Shrine of the mighty! can it be,
That this is all remains of thee?
Approach, thou craven crouching slave-
Say, is not this Thermopyla?
These waters blue that round you lave,
Oh servile offspring of the free!-
Pronounce what sea, what shore is this?
The gulf, the rock of Salamis!
These scenes their story not unknown-
Arise, and make again your own;
Snatch from the ashes of your sires
The embers of their former fires,
And he who in the strife expires
Will add to theirs a name of fear,
That Tyranny shall quake to hear,
And leave his sons a hope, a fame,
They too will rather die than shame;
For Freedom's battle once begun,
Bequeathed by bleeding Sire to Son,
Though baffled oft, is ever won.
Bear witness, Greece, thy living page,
Attest it many a deathless age!
While kings, in dusty darkness hid,
Have left a nameless pyramid,
Thy heroes-though the general doom
Hath swept the column from their tomb,
A mightier monument command,
The mountains of their native land!
There points thy Muse to stranger's eye,
The graves of those that cannot die!
"Twere long to tell, and sad to trace
Each step from splendour to disgrace.
Enough-no foreign foe could quell
Thy soul, till from itself it fell,"
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