Black billowy deeps in storms perpetual tossed,
And weary ways in wildering labyrinths lost.
O happy stroke, that burst the bonds of clay,
Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day,
And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar,
Where dangers threat and fears alarm no more.
Transporting thought! here let me wipe away
The tear of grief and wake a bolder lay.
But ah! the swimming eye o'erflows anew;
Nor check the sacred drops to pity due;
Lo, where in speechless, hopeless anguish, bend
O'er her loved dust, the parent, brother, friend!
How vain the hope of man! But cease thy strain,
Nor sorrow's dread solemnity profane;
Mixed with yon drooping mourners, on her bier
In silence shed the sympathetic tear.
WHEN in the crimson cloud of Even,
The lingering light decays,
And Hesper on the front of heaven
His glittering gem displays;
Deep in the silent vale, unseen,
Beside a lulling stream,
A pensive youth, of placid mien,
Indulged this tender theme.
"Ye cliffs, in hoary grandeur piled
High o'er the glimmering dale;
Ye woods along whose windings wild
Murmurs the solemn gale ;
Where melancholy strays forlorn,
And wo retires to weep,
What time the wan moon's yellow horn,
Gleams on the western deep:
"To you, ye wastes, whose artless charms Ne'er drew ambition's eye, Scaped a tumultuous world's alarms,
To your retreats I fly.
Deep in your' most sequestered bower
Let me at last recline,
Where solitude, mild, modest power,
Leans on her ivied shrine.
"How shall I woo thee, matchless fair! Thy heavenly smile how win!
Thy smile that smooths the brow of care, And stills the storm within.
O wilt thou to thy favourite grove
Thine ardent votary bring,
And bless his hours, and bid them move Serene, on silent wing!
"Oft let remembrance sooth his mind
With dreams of former days, When in the lap of peace reclined He framed his infant lays;
When fancy roved at large nor care,
Nor cold distress alarmed,
Nor envy with malignant glare
His simple youth had harmed.
"'Twas then, O solitude, to thee His early vows were paid,
From heart sincere, and warm, and free,
Devoted to the shade.
Ah why did fate his steps decoy
In stormy paths to roam,
Remote from all congenial joy!—
O take the wanderer home.
"Thy shades, thy silence now be mine,
Thy charms my only theme;
My haunt the hollow cliff, whose pine
Waves o'er the gloomy stream.
Whence the scared owl on pinions grey
Breaks from the rustling boughs,
And down the lone vale sails away
To more profound repose.
"O, while to thee the woodland pours Its wildly warbling song,
And balmy from the bank of flowers
The zephyr breathes along;
Let no rude sound invade from far,
No vagrant foot be nigh,
No ray from grandeur's gilded car,
Flash on the startled eye.
"But if some pilgrim through the glade
Thy hallowed bowers explore,
O guard from harm his hoary head,
And listen to his lore;
For he of joys divine shall tell,
That wean from earthly wo,
And triumph o'er the mighty spell
That chains this heart below.
"For me, no more the path invites
Ambition loves to tread;
No more I climb those toilsome heights
By guileful hope misled;
Leaps my fond fluttering heart no more
To mirth's enlivening strain;
For present pleasure soon is o'er,
And all the past is vain."
Ar the close of the day, when the hamlet is still,
And mortals the sweets of forgetfulness prove,
When nought but the torrent is heard on the hill,
And nought but the nightingale's song in the grove :
'Twas thus, by the cave of the mountain afar,
While his harp rung symphonious, a hermit began;
No more with himself or with nature at war,
He thought as a sage, though, he felt as a man.
"Ah! why, all abandoned to darkness and wo,
Why, lone Philomela, that languishing fall?
For spring shall return, and a lover bestow,
And sorrow no longer thy bosom enthral.
But, if pity inspire thee, renew the sad lay,
Mourn, sweetest complainer, man calls thee to mourn;
O sooth him, whose pleasures like thine pass away:
Full quickly they pass-but they never return.
"Now gliding remote, on the verge of the sky, The moon half extinguished her crescent displays: But lately I marked, when majestic on high
She shone, and the planets were lost in her blaze.
Roll on, thou fair orb, and with gladness pursue
The path that conducts thee to splendour again.
But man's faded glory what change shall renew!
Ah, fool! to exult in a glory so vain!
"'Tis night, and the landscape is lovely no more;
I mourn,'but, ye woodlands, I mourn not for you;
For morn is approaching, your charms to restore,
Perfumed with fresh fragrance, and glittering with
Nor yet for the ravage of winter I mourn; [dew:
Kind nature the embryo blossom will save.
But when shall spring visit the mouldering urn!
O when shall it dawn on the night of the grave!
""Twas thus, by the glare of false science betrayed,
That leads, to bewilder; and dazzles, to blind:
My thoughts wont to roam, from shade onward to
Destruction before me, and sorrow behind. [shade,
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