My weary aching head, on its last rest,
And on my lowly bed the grass-green sod
Will flourish sweetly.-And then they will weep
That one so young, and what they're pleased to call
So beautiful, should die so soon;-and tell
How painful disappointment's cankered fang
Withered the rose upon my maiden cheek.
Oh foolish ones! why, I shall sleep so sweetly,
Laid in my darksome grave, that they themselves
Might envy me my rest!-And as for them,
Who, on the score of former intimacy,
May thus remembrance me-they must themselves
Successive fall.
(When out-a-doors the biting frost congeals,
And shrill the skater's irons on the pool
Ring loud, as by the moonlight he performs
His graceful evolutions) they not long
Shall sit and chat of older times, and feats
Of early youth, but silent, one by one,
Shall drop into their shrouds.-Some, in their age,
Ripe for the sickle; others young, like me,
And falling green beneath the untimely stroke.
Thus, in short time, in the churchyard forlorn,
Where I shall lie, my friends will lay them down,
And dwell with me, a happy family.
And oh, thou cruel, yet beloved youth,
Who now has left me hopeless here to mourn,
Do thou but shed one tear upon my corse,
And say that I was gentle, and deserved
A better lover, and I shall forgive
All, all thy wrongs;-and then do thou forget.
The hapless Margaret, and be as blest
As wish can make thee.-Laugh, and play, and sing, With thy dear choice, and never think of me.
Yet hist, I hear a step.-In this dark wood
I'VE read, my friend, of Dioclesian,
And many another noble Grecian,
Who wealth and palaces resigned,
In cots the joys of peace to find;
Maximian's meal of turnip-tops
(Disgusting food to dainty chops),
I've also read of, without wonder:
But such a curst egregious blunder,
As that a man, of wit and sense,
Should leave his books to hoard up pence,-
Forsake the loved Aonian maids,
For all the petty tricks of trades,
I never, either now, or long since,
Have heard of such a piece of nonsense;
That one who learning's joys hath felt,
And at the Muse's altar knelt,
Should leave a life of sacred leisure,
To taste the accumulating pleasure;
And metamorphosed to an alley duck,
Grovel in loads of kindred muck.
Oh! 'tis beyond my comprehension !
A courtier throwing up his pension,-
A lawyer working without a fee,
A parson giving charity,
A truly pious Methodist preacher,
Are not, egad, so out of nature.
Had nature made thee half a fool,
But given thee wit to keep a school,
I had not stared at thy backsliding;
But when thy wit I can confide in,
When well I know thy just pretence
To solid and exalted sense;
When well I know that on thy head
Philosophy her lights hath shed,
I stand aghast! thy virtues sum to,
And wonder what this world will come to!
Yet, whence this strain? shall I repine
That thou alone dost singly shine?
Shall I lament that thou alone,
Of men of parts, hast prudence known?
LINES, ON READING THE POEMS OF WARTON.
O WARTON! to thy soothing shell,
Stretched remote in hermit cell,
Where the brook runs babbling by,
Forever I could listening lie;
And catching all the Muses' fire,
Hold converse with the tuneful choir.
What pleasing themes thy page adorn!
The ruddy streaks of cheerful morn,
The pastoral pipe, the ode sublime,
And melancholy's mournful chime,
Each with unwonted graces shines
In thy ever lovely lines.
Thy muse deserves the lasting meed;
Attuning sweet the Dorian reed,
Now the lovelorn swain complains,
And sings his sorrows to the plains;
Now the sylvan scenes appear
Through all the changes of the year;
Or the elegiac strain
Softly sings of mental pain,
And mournful diapasons sail
On the faintly-dying gale.
But, ah! the soothing scene is o'er!
On middle flight we cease to soar,
For now the Muse assumes a bolder sweep,
Strikes on the lyric string her sorrows deep,
In strains unheard before.
Now, now the rising fire thrills high,
Now, now to heaven's high realms we fly,
And every throne explore;
The soul entranced, on mighty wings,
With all the poet's heat, up springs,
And loses earthly woes;
Till all alarmed at the giddy height,
The Muse descends on gentler flight,
And lulls the wearied soul to soft repose.
WRITTEN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN.
ILL-FATED maid, in whose unhappy train, Chill poverty and misery are seen,
Anguish and discontent, the unhappy bane Of life, and blackener of each brighter scene; Why to thy votaries dost thou give to feel So keenly all the scorns-the jeers of life? Why not endow them to endure the strife With apathy's invulnerable steel,
Or self-content and ease, each torturing wound to heal.
Ah! who would taste your self-deluding joys,
That lure the unwary to a wretched doom,
That bid fair views and flattering hopes arise,
Then hurl them headlong to a lasting tomb?
What is the charm which leads thy victims on
To persevere in paths that lead to woe?
What can induce them in that route to go,
In which innumerous before have gone,
And died in misery, poor and woe-begone?
Yet can I ask what charms in thee are found:
I, who have drank from thine ethereal rill,
And tasted all the pleasures that abound
Upon Parnassus, loved Aonian hill?
I, through whose soul the Muses' strains aye thrill!
|