Triumph of Old Age.

AN ELEGIAC POEM.

CANTO V.

Connubial Felicity.

OH! how delightful, when the summer beams Of solar radiance gild the evening scene! When not less lustrous than at mid-day, seems The glowing azure of a sky serene!

But tho' the light extensively displays
As distant prospects as at clearest noon,
Twilight is look'd for, and the feebler rays
Announce the darkness, and shall vanish soon.

A life of goodness has a summer eve,
And mind is vig'rous as in early prime;
No cares impair it, no reflections grieve,
To make it feel the ravages of time. 1

Yet life's departure is approaching fast;
Tho' strong its functions, it must soon decay,
Till there be only left a corpse to waste,

And mind and thinking fly th' unconscious clay.

But let not sceptics thence conclusions draw,
The hopes deceive us promis'd from on high;
The western sun must set,-'tis nature's law,

And 'tis the same, th' exhausted frame should die.

But what an emblem to the good and wise!
The sun, that sets but only for a night,
Seems to declare the virtuous dead shall rise,
With souls more perfect, to eternal light.

'Tis but last eve I saw the glowing sun, And now it rises on another morn:

'Tis thus, when man's short sunny day is gone, He sleeps in darkness ere he can return.

'Tis but a day, Dear Woman, since I hail'd
Thy mind as vig'rous as in youthful bloom;
Nor can it be that heav'nly spark has fail'd,
Like aged spoils that moulder in the tomb.

A soul that brighten'd as the frame decay'd,
Retires, but dies not, at its closing day;
'Till rising in immortal youth array'd,

Its night shall pass, and morn revive its clay.

Thy life was happy, and without alloy

Of all those pangs less favour'd mortals know; Those sick'ning pangs! that deaden ev'ry joy, And wean our fondness from the things below!

"Twas the bright sunshine of a summer day, That threw an even, long, unclouded light; Not ev'n a show'r obscur'd th' effulgent ray, Till came the evening, and it set in night.

As bright and smiling was the early morn,
That on proud Austria's fairest daughter rose ;
But oh! her noon of all its glories shorn,

How was it darken'd with excessive woes!

Her soul still struggled in degraded rank,
And nobly soar'd above her fall immense;
Unaw'd by terror and distress, she drank
Affliction's cup, and triumph'd over sense.

Tremendous day! the loudly-rolling car,--
Herself amid a taunting rabble led,-
The mind unconquer'd,-the majestic air,-
The quiv'ring lips, the ghastly-bleeding head!

Among an envious and unpitying world,

No lengthen'd troubles wore thy graceful form; Nor was destruction at thy prospects hurl'd, And thyself left to struggle with the storm.

For life to most is but a hard campaign,
Where disappointment frets, and grief abounds;
Where after struggles, struggles yet remain,
And ev'ry year is mark'd by recent wounds.

Escaping thus the trials of the rest,

Which are in poverty but felt the more, Thou hadst not only fortune, but a breast Still more expanded than thy ample store.