Hast thou too felt the pangs of hopeless love,
That thus, with such a melancholy grace,
Thou dost pursue thy solitary course?
Hast thy Endymion, smooth-faced boy, forsook
Thy widowed breast-on which the spoiler oft
Has nestled fondly, while the silver clouds
Fantastic pillowed thee, and the dim night,
Obsequious to thy will, encurtained round
With its thick fringe thy couch?-Wan traveller,
How like thy fate to mine!-Yet I have still
One heavenly hope remaining, which thou lack'st;
My woes will soon be buried in the grave
Of kind forgetfulness:-my journey here,
Though it be darksome, joyless, and forlorn,
Is yet but short, and soon my weary feet
Will greet the peaceful inn of lasting rest.
But thou, unhappy Queen! art doomed to trace
Thy lonely walk in the drear realms of night,
While many a lagging age shall sweep beneath
The leaden pinions of unshaken time;
Though not a hope shall spread its glittering hue
To cheat thy steps along the weary way.
Oh that the sum of human happiness
Should be so trifling, and so frail withal,
That when possessed, it is but lessened grief;
And even then there's scarce a sudden gust
That blows across the dismal waste of life,
But bears it from the view.-Oh! who would shun
The hour that cuts from earth, and fear to press
The calm and peaceful pillows of the grave,
And yet endure the various ills of life,
And dark vicissitudes!-Soon, I hope, I feel,
And am assured, that I shall lay my head,
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
WRITTEN AT A VERY EARLY AGE.
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.
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