I joyless view thy rays adorn
The faintly-marked, distant hill :
I joyless view thy trembling horn,
Reflected in the gurgling rill:
My fondly-fluttering heart, be still!
Thou busy power, Remembrance, cease!
Ah! must the agonising thrill
For ever bar returning peace!
No idly-feign'd poetic pains,
My sad, love-lorn lamentings claim ;
No shepherd's pipe-Arcadian strains;
No fabled tortures, quaint and tame :
The plighted faith; the mutual flame;
The oft-attested powers above;
The promised father's tender name;
These were the pledges of my love!
Encircled in her clasping arms,
How have the raptured moments flown! How have I wish'd for fortune's charms, For her dear sake, and hers alone! And must I think it !-is she gone,
My secret heart's exulting boast? And does she heedless hear my groan? And is she ever, ever lost?
can she bear so base a heart, So lost to honour, lost to truth, As from the fondest lover part,
The plighted husband of her youth! Alas! life's path may be unsmooth!
Her way may lie through rough distress ! Then, who her pangs and pains will soothe, Her sorrows share, and make them less?
Ye winged hours that o'er us pass'd,
Enraptured more, the more enjoy'd,
Your dear remembrance in my breast,
My fondly-treasured thoughts employ'd.
That breast, how dreary now, and void,
For her too scanty once of room!
Even every ray of hope destroy'd,
And not a wish to gild the gloom!
The morn that warns th' approaching day
Awakes me up to toil and woe :
I see the hours in long array,
That I must suffer, lingering, slow.
Full many a pang, and many a throe,
Keen recollection's direful train,
Must wring my soul, ere Phoebus, low,
Shall kiss the distant, western main.
And when my nightly couch I try,
Sore harass'd out with care and grief, My toil-beat nerves, and tear-worn eye, Keep watchings with the nightly thief; Or if I slumber, fancy, chief,
Reigns haggard-wild, in sore affright: Even day, all-bitter, brings relief,
From such a horror-breathing night.
O thou bright Queen, who o'er th' expanse, Now highest reign'st, with boundless sway! Oft has thy silent-marking glance
Observed us, fondly wandering, stray !
The time, unheeded, sped away,
While love's luxurious pulse beat high,
Beneath thy silver-gleaming ray,
To mark the mutual-kindling eye.
Oh! scenes in strong remembrance set!
Scenes, never, never to return!
Scenes, if in stupor I forget,
Again I feel, again I burn!
From every joy and pleasure torn,
Life's weary vale I'll wander through;
And hopeless, comfortless, I'll mourn
A faithless woman's broken vow.
A burden more than I can bear,
with with care,
I set me down and sigh:
O life! thou art a galling load,
Along a rough, a weary road,
To wretches such as I!
Dim, backward, as I cast my view,
What sickening scenes appear!
What sorrows yet may pierce me through,
Too justly I may fear!
Still caring, despairing,
Must be my bitter doom:
My woes here shall close ne'er,
But with the closing tomb!
Happy, ye sons of busy life,
Who, equal to the bustling strife,
No other view regard!
Even when the wishèd end's denied,
Yet while the busy means are plied,
They bring their own reward:
Whilst I, a hope-abandon'd wight,
Unfitted with an aim,
Meet every sad returning night
And joyless morn the same;
You, bustling, and justling,
Forget each grief and pain;
I, listless, yet restless,
Find every prospect vain.
How blest the Solitary's lot,
Who, all-forgetting, all-forgot,
Within his humble cell,
The cavern wild with tangling roots,
Sits o'er his newly-gather'd fruits,
Beside his crystal well!
Or, haply, to his evening thought,
By unfrequented stream,
The ways of men are distant brought,
A faint collected dream;
While praising, and raising
His thoughts to Heaven on high,
As, wand'ring, meand'ring,
He views the solemn sky.
Than I, no lonely hermit placed
Where never human footstep traced,
Less fit to play the part;
The lucky moment to improve,
And just to stop, and just to move,
With self-respecting art:
But, ah! those pleasures, loves, and joys
Which I too keenly taste,
The Solitary can despise,
Can want, and yet be blest!
He needs not, he heeds not,
Or human love or hate,
Whilst I here must cry here
At perfidy ingrate !
Oh! enviable, early days,
When dancing thoughtless pleasure's maze,
To care, to guilt unknown!
How ill exchanged for riper times,
To feel the follies, or the crimes,
Of others, or my own!
Ye tiny elves that guiltless sport,
Like linnets in the bush,
Ye little know the ills ye court,
When manhood is your wish!
The losses, the crosses,
That active man engage!
The fears all, the tears all,
Of dim declining age!
VERSES TO MY BED.
HOU bed, in which I first began
To be that various creature-man! And when again the fates decree, The place where I must cease to beWhen sickness comes, to whom I fly To soothe my pain or close mine eye-
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