How bright, emerging o'er yon broom-clad height, The waters tumbling o'er their rocky bed, August and hoary, o'er the sloping dale, Where yon old trees bend o'er a place of graves, There oft, at dawn, as one forgot behind, High o'er the pines, that with their darkening shade So, midst the snow of Age, a boastful air Still on the war-worn veteran's brow attends ; Still his big bones his youthful prime declare, Tho', trembling o'er the feeble crutch, he bends. Wild round the gates the dusky wall-flowers creep, Where oft the knights the beauteous dame have led; Gone is the bower, the grot a ruin'd heap, Where bays and ivy o'er the fragments spread. 'Twas here our sires exulting from the fight, Great in their bloody arms, march'd o'er the lea, Eying their rescu'd fields with proud delight! Now lost to them! and, ah how chang'd to me! This bank, the river, and the fanning breeze, So shone the moon through these soft nodding trees, When April's smiles the flowery lawn adorn, So fair a blossom gentle POLLIO wore, These were the emblems of his healthful mind; To him the letter'd page display'd its lore, To him bright Fancy all her wealth resign'd: Him, with her purest flames the Muse endow'd, Flames never to th' illiberal thought allied; The sacred sisters led where Virtue glow'd In all her charms; he saw, he felt, and died. Oh partner of my infant griefs and joys! Big with the scenes now past my heart o'erflows, Oft with the rising sun, when life was new, The sainted well, where yon bleak hill declines, For Thou art gone-My guide, my friend, oh where, How dreary is the gulph, how dark, how void, Hope faulters, and the soul recoils aghast. Wide round she spacious heavens I cast my eyes; And could thy bright, thy living soul expire? Far be the thought—The pleasures most sublime, The glow of friendship, and the virtuous tear, The towering wish that scorns the bounds of time, Chill'd in this vale of Death, but languish here. So plant the vine on Norway's wintery land, The lonely shepherd on the mountain's side, Thus I, on Life's storm-beaten ocean tost, Oh that some kind, some pitying kindred shade, Who now, perhaps, frequents this solemn grove, Would tell the awful secrets of the Dead, And from my eyes the mortal film remove ! Vain is the wish—yet surely not in vain Man's bosom glows with that celestial fire, Which scorns earth's luxuries, which smiles at pain, And wings his spirit with sublime desire. To fan this spark of heaven, this ray divine, So to the dark-brow'd wood, or sacred mount, Restor❜d Creation bright before them rose, The burning desarts smil❜d as Eden's plains, One friendly shade the wolf and lambkin chose, The flowery mountain sung, "Messiah reigns!" Tho' fainter raptures my cold breast inspire, What time the moonshine dimly gleams between. There, where the cross in hoary ruin nods, And weeping yews o'ershade the letter'd stones, While midnight silence wraps these drear abodes, And sooths me wandering o'er my kindred bones, |