Oh! silent spirit of the place,
If, lingering with the ruin'd year, Thy hoary form and awful face
I yet might watch and worship here! Thy storm were music to mine ear, Thy wildest walk a shelter given Sublimer thoughts on earth to find, And share, with no unhallow'd mind, The majesty of heaven.
What though the bosom-friends of Fate,-
Prosperity's unweaned brood,-
Thy consolations cannot rate,
O self-dependent Solitude!
Yet with a spirit unsubdued,
Though darken'd by the clouds of Care,
To worship thy congenial gloom,
A pilgrim to the Prophet's tomb
The Friendless shall repair.
On him the world hath never smiled
Or look'd but with accusing eye;—
All-silent goddess of the wild,
To thee that misanthrope shall fly!
I hear his deep soliloquy,
I mark his proud but ravaged form,
As stern he wraps his mantle round,
And bids, on winter's bleakest ground,
Defiance to the storm.
Peace to his banish'd heart, at last,
In thy dominions shall descend,
And, strong as beechwood in the blast,
His spirit shall refuse to bend;
Enduring life without a friend,
The world and falsehood left behind,
Thy votary shall bear elate,
Triumphant o'er opposing Fate,
His dark inspired mind.
But dost thou, Folly, mock the Muse
A wanderer's mountain-walk to sing,
Who shuns a warring world, nor woos
The vulture-cover of its wing?
Then fly, thou cowering, shivering thing,
Back to the fostering world beguiled,
To waste in self-consuming strife
The loveless brotherhood of life,
Reviling and reviled !
Away, thou lover of the race
That hither chased yon weeping deer!
If Nature's all-majestic face
More pitiless than man's appear;
Or if the wild winds seem more drear
Than man's cold charities below,
Behold around his peopled plains,
Where'er the social savage reigns,
Exuberance of wo!
His art and honours would'st thou seek
Emboss'd on grandeur's giant walls?
Or hear his moral thunders speak
Where senates light their airy halls,
Where man his brother man enthralls;
Or sends his whirlwind warrants forth
To rouse the slumbering fiends of war,
To dye the blood-warm waves afar,
And desolate the earth?
From clime to clime pursue the scene,
And mark in all thy spacious way,
Where'er the tyrant man has been,
There Peace, the cherub, cannot stay;
In wilds and woodlands far away
She builds her solitary bower,
Where only anchorites have trod,
Or friendless men, to worship God,
Have wander'd for an hour.
In such a far forsaken vale,
And such, sweet Eldurn vale, is thine,Afflicted nature shall inhale
Heaven-borrow'd thoughts and joys divine; No longer wish, no more repine For man's neglect or woman's scorn;— Then wed thee to an exile's lot,
For if the world hath loved thee not,
Its absence may be borne.
O THOг by whose expressive art
Her perfect image Nature sees
In union with the Graces start,
And sweeter by reflection please!
In whose creative hand the hues
Fresh from yon orient rainbow shine;
I bless thee, Promethean Muse!
And call thee brightest of the Nine!
Possessing more than vocal power,
Persuasive more than poet's tongue;
Whose lineage, in a raptured hour,*
From Love, the Sire of Nature, sprung;
Does Hope her high possession meet?
Is joy triumphant, sorrow flown?
Sweet is the trance, the tremor sweet,
When all we love is all our own.
* Alluding to the well-known tradition respecting the origin of painting, that it arose from a young Corinthian female tracing the shadow of her lover's profile on the wall, as he lay asleep.
But, oh! thou pulse of pleasure dear,
Slow throbbing, cold, I feel thee part;
Lone absence plants a pang severe,
Or death inflicts a keener dart.
Then for a beam of joy to light
In Memory's sad and wakeful eye!
Or banish from the noon of night
Her dreams of deeper agony.
Shall Song its witching cadence roll?
Yea, even the tenderest air repeat,
That breathed when soul was knit to soul,
And heart to heart responsive beat?
What visions rise! to charm, to melt!
The lost, the loved, the dead are near!
Oh, hush that strain too deeply felt!
And cease that solace too severe !
But thou, serenely silent art!
By Heaven and Love wast taught to lend A milder solace to the heart,
The sacred image of a friend.
All is not lost! if, yet possest,
To me that sweet memorial shine :-
If close and closer to my breast
I hold that idol all divine.
Or, gazing through luxurious tears,
Melt o'er the loved departed form,
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