SONG. Oft in the stilly night, Of other days around me. The smiles, the tears of boyhood's years, The words of love then spoken, The eyes that shone, now dimmed aud gone, The cheerful hearts now broken! When I remember all I feel like one, who treads alone Some banquet-hall deserted, Whose lights are fled, whose garlands dead, And all but he departed! Thus in the stilly night, Ere slumber's chain has bound me, Fond memory brings the light Of other days around me ON ROUSSEAU. "Tis too absurd-'tis weakness, shame, This low prostration before FameThis casting down, beneath the car Of Idols, whatsoe'er they are, Life's purest, holiest decencies, To be careered o'er, as they please. No,-let triumphant Genius have All that his loftiest wish can crave. If he be worshipped, let it be For attributes, his noblest, first,Not with that base idolatry, I Which sanctifies his last and worst. may be cold-may want that glow Of high romance, which bards should know That holy homage, which is felt In treading where the great have dwelt- I fear, I feel I have it not, The charms of this delightful spot- Tranquil and tame as they were once In Eden, ere the startling words Of Man disturbed their orisons !- Through weeping-willows, like the snatches Of far-off scenes of light, which Hope Even through the shade of sadness catches! Beneath whose shade the Virtues meet; Our sympathies with human wo, "Twixt quiet mirth and wise employ- Those sordid truths, that cross the track And vanities of that man's life, Who, more than all that e'er have glowed What an imposter Genius is— O'er the dark path, by mortals trod, As crawls along the sullying sod; What sensibility may fall From its false lip, what plans to bless, While home, friends, kindred, country, all, Lie waste beneath its selfishness. How, with the pencil hardly dry From colouring up such scenes of love And beauty, as make young hearts sigh, And dream, and think through heaven they rove, They, who can thus describe and move, The very workers of these charms, Nor seek, nor ask a heaven, above How all, in short, that make the boast And, while with Freedom on their lips, Like stunted brushwood in the shade! Out on the craft,—I'd rather be One of those hinds, that round me tread, With just enough of sense to see The noon-day sun that's o'er my head, Than thus, with high-built genius curst, That hath no heart for its foundation, Be all, at once, that's brightest-worstSublimest-meanest in creation! |