The weather-mark that whistled to the wind;
The crooked path, where mingled bri'rs entwin'd; The startling thrush that warbled as he flew ; Dear former sights! oh! when shall I review? Say, how can cruel memory retain
Those pleasures here, which but augment my pain?
Here, where full many a dismal tempest past,
At the still hour, the frequent corse is cast
In the wide deep, without one sacred tear ;-
Meanwhile, distinct to musing fancy's ear,
Wan ghosts, slow-rising from their wat❜ry grave,
Moan to the murmur of the falling wave.
Yet, vain delusion, I expect once more,
Secure to sit, nor dread the billowy roar ;
Bound o'er the thicket, gambol on the lawn,
And taste of all the transports I have drawn.
Grant me, oh! God, immensely good and wise, That quiet cell where true religion lies, Where modes of faith, and bigot strife aside, Conscience itself the generous act will guide; The monkish cowl, the drear monastic gloom; The saintly gaud and consecrated tomb, Despis'd; let instinct, each revolving hour, In every part embrace the Sovereign Pow'r!
Let every bird I hear, and bud I see,
Still closer link my grateful soul to Thee;
For, each fresh object of my fostering care,
The shrub I rear'd, its fruit I wish'd to share;
The flight, the throb of thought, the magic line,
Thou gav'st them all, and all of them are Thine!
By yon unhallow'd trunk, whose leafless form,
Rocks to each spectred blast, that sweeps the vale,
Where famish'd ravens shriek amid the storm,
And flashing fires their withered haunts assail,
The child of sorrow sat with musing eye;
Meanwhile, the happy hamlet slept around,
Oft heaved, in agony, the bursting sigh ;
Oft sunk, exhausted, on the baneful ground.
The tall grass shiv'ring to the moaning wind,
Seem'd like harsh thunder to his frighted ear,
For by his trembling side, before, behind,
Stood all the aguish fiends of dubious Fear.
"Ah is it thus the Lord of Nature lies?
Thus from his broken heart the accents flow?
Thus streams contrition from his haggard eyes?
A miserable majesty of wo
"Say what avails to strike the seraph wire,
The soul to soften, or the breast inflame?
What boots the soldier's valour, poet's fire,
Or, (that poor meed of all their labour) fame?
"The vex'd stream winding thro' its pebbly course
Shall in the main its liquid journey end;
Life's stream, alas! of every care the source,
Can ne'er its slow and turbid progress mend,
" "Till rolling down the awful gulph of death,
Its eddying surges mock the aching sight;
Hoarse-murmuring echo thro' the vaults beneath,
And solitary pierce the solid night.
"Poor pensioners of Fate, with doubt our doom,
Forsaken infants in this peopled wild ;
Whose only comforts lean upon the tomb,
By airy schemes of future bliss beguil❜d.
66 Away! some demon rules the savage globe;
(Not He, whose matchless mercy feels for all,)
Some demon clad in slaughter's purple robe,
The rebel tyrant of our crazy ball!
"Away, would he, as pitiful, as great,
See virtue struggling with her felon foes?
See puny pride with merit's spoils elate,
And horror's grin malign at feeling's throes?
"Would not the sleeping thunderbolt arise,
The lurid ruin sheet the breaching air,
His own red arm throw back the clouded skies,
And bid, (dread words !) "Mortality despair?"
"Assured in this, why longer should I brook
The rising mischiefs of each rising day?
The stab in dimples wreathed, the angry look,
The killing scorn, and some Infernal's sway?
"No, I will fly to him, my bosom's God;
The God of truth, the bountiful, the brave;
His justice soon shall fix my last abode,
Whose nod can punish, or,
"Conscious of no ill deed, which honest worth
At Heavn's tribunal to my charge could lay,
On the long road of death I venture forth,
With hope alone to chear me on the way."
He said, and smote his heart; the well-aim'd blow
Was met by being in a tide of gore :
His pulse paused short, his frame forgot to glow, He fell The child of sorrow was no more.
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