When first our scanty years are told,
It seems like pastime to grow old;
And, as Youth counts the shining links,
That time around him binds so fast,
Pleased with the task, he little thinks
How hard that chain will press at last.
Vain was the man, and false as vain,
Who said "were he ordain'd to run
His long career of life again,
He would do all that he had done."
Ah, 't is not thus the voice, that dwells
In sober birth-days, speaks to me;
Far otherwise-of time it tells,
Lavish'd unwisely, carelessly-
Of counsel mock'd-of talents, made
Haply for high and pure designs,
But oft, like Israel's incense, laid
Upon unholy, earthly shrines,-
Of nursing many a wrong desire,-
Of wandering after Love too far,
And taking every meteor fire,
That cross'd my pathway, for his star!
All this it tells, and, could I trace
Th' imperfect picture o'er again,
With power to add, retouch, efface
The light and shades,-the joy and pain,
How little of the past would stay,
How quickly all should melt away-
All, but that freedom of the mind,
Which hath been more than wealth to me; Those friendships in my boyhood twined, And kept till now unchangingly; And that dear home, that saving ark, Where love's true light at last I've found, Cheering within when all grows dark, And comfortless, and stormy round!
ECHO AND SILENCE.
IN eddying course, when leaves began to fly,
And Autumn in her lap the stores to strew,
As 'mid wild scenes I chanced the muse to woo, Through glens untrod, and woods that frown'd on high,
Two sleeping nymphs, with wonder mute, I spy :— And, lo! she's gone. In robe of dark green hue, "T was Echo from her sister Silence flew:
For quick the hunter's horn resounded to the sky.—
In shade affrighted Silence melts away.
Not so her sister. Hark! for onward still,
With far heard step, she takes her listening way,
Bounding from rock to rock and hill to hill;
Ah! mark the merry maid in mockful play,
With thousand mimic tones the laughing forest fill.
THE crowds are gone, the revellers at rest,
The courteous host and all-approving guest,
Again to that accustom'd couch must creep
Where joy subsides, and sorrow sighs to sleep,
And man, o'erlabour'd with his being's strife,
Shrinks to that sweet forgetfulness of life.
There lie love's feverish hope, and cunning's guile,
Hate's working brain, and lull'd ambition's wile,
O'er each vain eye oblivion's pinions wave,
And quench'd existence crouches in a grave.
What better name may slumberer's bed become?
Night's sepulchre, the universal home,
Where weakness, strength, vice, virtue, sunk supine,
Alike in naked helplessness recline,
Glad for awhile to heave unconscious breath,
Yet wake to wrestle with the dread of death;
And shun, though day but dawn on ills increased,
That sleep, the loveliest, since it dreams the least,
BYRON.
To sigh, yet feel no pain,
To weep, yet scarce know why,
To sport an hour with beauty's chain,
Then throw it idly by:
To kneel at many a shrine,
Yet lay the heart on none;
To think all other charms divine,
But those we just have won;
This is love-careless love-
Such as kindleth hearts that rove.
To keep one sacred flame
Through life unchill'd, unmoved,
To love in wintry age
As first in youth we loved :
To feel that we adore
With such refined excess,
That though the heart would break with more,
We could not live with less;
This is love, faithful love
Such as saints might feel above!
GENTLE RIVER.
GENTLE river! gentle river!
Wilt thou thus complain for ever?
Why, when naught obstructs thy flow,
Dost thou sigh, and, murmuring low,
Strike my ear with sounds of woe?
Is it that some sand-bank's force
For an instant stay'd thy course?
Has some shoal or rugged rock
Stemm'd thy waves with sudden shock?
Wail no longer, gentle river!
These are past and gone for ever;
Yonder is the wish'd-for sea,
Home of peace and rest for thee;
Why does man, when all is shining,
Dim thy brightness by repining?
Why, when no dark cloud hangs o'er him,
Dreads he still some rock before him,
Weeps o'er woes he long has past,
Mourns his joys which did not last?
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor mourn,
Yonder is the wish'd-for bourn,
Home of peace and rest for thee.-
Death and Immortality!
EVENING.
THE zenith spreads
Its canopy of sapphire, but the West
Has a magnificent array of clouds;
And, as the breeze plays on them, they assume
The forms of mountains, castled cliffs, and hills,
And shadowy glens, and groves, and beetling rocks,
And some that seem far off, are voyaging
Their sun-bright path in folds of silver :-some
In golden masses float, and others have
Edgings of burning crimson.-Isles are seen,
All lovely, set within an emerald sea,
And there are dyes in the rich heavens,-such
As sparkle in the grand and gorgeous plume
Of JUNO's favourite bird, or deck the scaled
And wreathing serpent.
Never, from the birth
Of Time, were scatter'd o'er the glowing sky
More splendid colourings. Every varying hue
Of every beautiful thing on earth, the tints
Of heaven's own IRIS,-all are in the West
On this delicious eve.
And billowy horizon, once more sinks
The traveller of six thousand years. A wide
And deep-felt pause prevails; the peaceful sway
Of Twilight is begun. Bright Morning calls
The world to action, and the tyrant SUN,
With beam intense, sweeps o'er it, sparing not
Earth's toiling millions; but sweet Evening brings
Her gentle airs to renovate the globe,
And (as the insatiate orb has drunk the streams)
Sprinkles her liberal dews, and with a hush
Comes on, that her beloved may have rest-
The sons of toil.
The fiercely brilliant streaks
Of crimson disappear, but o'er the hills
A flush of orange hovers, softening up
Into harmonious union with the blue
That comes a sweeping down, for Twilight hastes
To dash all other colours from the sky
But this her favourite azure. Even now
The East displays its palely-beaming stars,
With the mild, radiating Moon: and thus
There is no end to all thy prodigies,
O Nature'
FITZ-JAMES AND RODERICK DHU.
THEN each at once his falchion drew,
Each on the ground his scabbard threw,
Each look'd to sun, and stream, and plain,
As what he ne'er might see again :
Then foot, and point, and eye opposed,
In dubious strife they darkly closed.-
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