No more with mortal pencil shalt thou trace
An imitative radiance: thy pure lyre
Springs from our changeful atmosphere's embrace,
And beams and breathes in empyreal fire:
The Homeric and Miltonian sacred tone
Responsive hail that lyre congenial to their own.
Bury, 11th Jan. 1807.
TO THE MEMORY OF H. K. WHITE.
IF worth, if genius, to the world are dear,
To Henry's shade devote no common tear.
His worth on no precarious tenure hung,
From genuine piety his virtues sprung:
If pure benevolence, if steady sense,
Can to the feeling heart delight dispense;
If all the highest efforts of the mind,
Exalted, noble, elegant, refin'd,
Call for fond sympathy's heart-felt regret,
Ye sons of genius, pay the mournful debt:
His friends can truly speak how large his claim,
And "Life was only wanting to his fame."
Art Thou, indeed, dear youth, for ever fled?
So quickly number'd with the silent dead.
* Alluding to his pencil'd sketch of a head surrounded with a glory.
Too sure I read it in the downcast eye,
Hear it in mourning friendship's stifled sigh.
Ah! could esteem, or admiration, save
So dear an object from th' untimely grave,
This transcript faint had not essay'd to tell,
The loss of one belov'd, rever'd so well.
Vainly I try, even eloquence were weak,
The silent sorrow that I feel, to speak.
No more my hours of pain thy voice will cheer,
And bind my spirit to this lower sphere;
Bend o'er my suffering frame with gentle sigh,
And bid new fire relume my languid eye:
No more the pencil's mimic art command,
And with kind pity guide my trembling hand;
Nor dwell upon the page in fond regard,
To trace the meaning of the Tuscan bard.
Vain all the pleasures Thou can'st not inspire,
And in my breast th' imperfect joys expire."
I fondly hop'd thy hand might grace my shrine,
And little dream'd I should have wept o'er thine:
In Fancy's eye methought I saw thy lyre
With virtue's energies each bosom fire;
I saw admiring nations press around,
Eager to catch the animating sound:
And when, at length, sunk in the shades of night,
To brighter worlds thy spirit wing'd its flight,
Thy country hail'd thy venerated shade,
And each grac'd honour to thy memory paid.
Such was the fate hope pictur'd to my view-
But who, alas! e'er found hope's visions true?
And, ah! a dark presage, when last we met,
Sadden'd the social hour with deep regret;
When Thou thy portrait from the minstrel drew,
The living Edwin starting on my view-
Silent, I ask'd of heav'n a lengthen'd date;
His genius thine, but not like thine his fate.
Shuddering I gaz'd, and saw too sure reveal'd,
The fatal truth, by hope till then conceal'd.
Too strong the portion of celestial flame
For its weak tenement, the fragile frame;
Too soon for Us it sought its native sky,
And soar'd impervious to the mortal eye;
Like some clear planet, shadow'd from our sight,
Leaving behind long tracks of lucid light:
So shall thy bright example fire each youth
With love of virtue, pięty, and truth..
Long o'er thy loss shall grateful Granta mourn,
And bid her sons revere thy favour'd urn,
When thy lov'd flower "Springs victory makes known,"
The primrose pale shall bloom for thee alone :
Around thy urn the rosemary will spread,
Whose "tender fragrance,"-emblem of the dead-
Shall "teach the maid, whose bloom no longer lives,”
That "virtue every perish'd grace survives."
Farewell! sweet Moralist; heart-sick'ning grief
Tells me in duty's paths to seek relief,
With surer aim on faith's strong pinions rise,
And seek hope's vanish'd anchor in the skies.
Yet still on thee shall fond remembrance dwell,
And to the world thy worth delight to tell ;
Tho' well I feel unworthy Thee the lays
That to thy memory weeping friendship pays.
Supposed to have been written at the Grave of H. K. WHITE.
YE gentlest gales! oh, hither waft,
On airy undulating sweeps,
Your frequent sighs, so passing soft,
Where he, the youthful POET, sleeps!
He breath'd the purest, tenderest sigh,
The sigh of sensibility.
And thou shalt lie, his fav'rite flower,
Pale PRIMROSE, on his grave reclin'd:
Sweet emblem of his fleeting hour,
And of his pure, his spotless mind!
Like thee, he sprung in lowly vale;
And felt, like thee, the trying gale.
Nor hence thy pensive eye seclude,
Oh thou, the fragrant ROSEMARY,
Where he, "in marble solitude,
So peaceful, and so deep," doth lie!
His harp prophetic sung to thee
In notes of sweet minstrelsy.
Ye falling dews, Oh! ever leave
Your chrystal drops these flow'rs to steep: At earliest morn, at latest eve,
Oh let them for their Poet weep! For tears bedew'd his gentle eye, The tears of heavenly sympathy.
Thou western Sun, effuse thy beams;
For he was wont to pace the glade,
To watch in pale uncertain gleams,
The crimson-zon'd horizon fade-
Thy last, thy setting radiance pour,
Where he is set to rise no more.
On the late HENRY KIRKe White.
AND is the minstrel's voyage o'er?
And is the star of genius fled? And will his magic harp no more,
Mute in the mansions of the dead,
Its strains seraphic pour?
|