When, round the bowl, of vanish'd years
We talk with joyous seeming
With smiles that might as well be tears,
So faint, so sad their beaming;
While memory brings us back again
Each early tie that twined us,
O, sweet's the cup that circles then
To those we've left behind us!

And when in other climes we meet
Some isle or vale enchanting,

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Where all looks flowery, wild, and sweet,
And nought but love is wanting ;

We think how great had been our bliss
If Heaven had but assign'd us
To live and die in scenes like this,
With some we've left behind us!

As travellers oft look back at eve
When eastward darkly going,
To gaze upon that light they leave
Still faint behind them glowing,-
So, when the close of pleasure's day
To gloom hath near consign'd us,
We turn to catch one fading ray
Of joy that's left behind us.

T. MOORE.

222

YOUTH AND AGE

There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away,

When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull decay;

'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone which fades so fast,

But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.

Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happiness

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Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt or ocean of

excess :

The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain

The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch again.

Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down ;

It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream

its own;

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That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our

tears,

And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.

Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,

Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;

'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret

wreathe,

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All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and grey beneath.

O could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been, Or weep as I could once have wept o'er many a Ivanish'd scene,

As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though they be,

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So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow to me!

223

LORD BYRON.

A LESSON

There is a flower, the Lesser Celandine,

That shrinks like many more from cold and rain, And, the first moment that the sun may shine, Bright as the sun himself, 'tis out again!

When hailstones have been falling, swarm on

swarm,

Or blasts the green field and the trees distrest, Oft have I seen it muffled up from harm In close self-shelter, like a thing at rest. But lately, one rough day, this flower I past, And recognized it, though an alter'd form, Now standing forth an offering to the blast, And buffeted at will by rain and storm. I stopp❜d and said, with inly-mutter'd voice, 'It doth not love the shower, nor seek the cold; This neither is its courage nor its choice, But its necessity in being old.

'The sunshine may not cheer it, nor the dew; It cannot help itself in its decay;

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Stiff in its members, wither'd, changed of hue,'
And, in my spleen, I smiled that it was grey.
To be a prodigal's favourite then, worse truth,
A miser's pensioner-behold our lot!
O Man that from thy fair and shining youth
Age might but take the things Youth needed not!
W. WORDSWORTH.

224

PAST AND PRESENT

I remember, I remember

The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;

He never came a wink too soon
Nor brought too long a day;
But now,

often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups—
Those flowers made of light!

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The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birth-day,-
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember

Where I was used to swing,

And thought the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;

My spirit flew in feathers then

That is so heavy now,

And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember

The fir trees dark and high;

I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:

It was a childish ignorance,

But now 'tis little joy

To know I'm farther off from Heaven

Than when I was a boy.

225

T. HOOD.

THE LIGHT OF OTHER DAYS

Oft in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Fond Memory brings the light

Of other days around me :

The smiles, the tears

Of boyhood's years,

The words of love then spoken;

The eyes that shone,

Now dimm'd and gone,

Thus in the stilly night,

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The cheerful hearts now broken!

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Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

When I remember all

The friends so link'd together
I've seen around me fall

Like leaves in wintry weather
I feel like one

Who treads alone

Some banquet-hall deserted,
Whose lights are fled

Whose garlands dead,

And all but he departed!

Thus in the stilly night,

Ere slumber's chain has bound me,

Sad Memory brings the light

Of other days around me.

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T. MOORE.

226

INVOCATION

Rarely, rarely, comest thou,

Spirit of Delight!

Wherefore hast thou left me now

Many a day and night? Many a weary night and day "Tis since thou art fled away.

How shall ever one like me
Win thee back again?
With the joyous and the free
Thou wilt scoff at pain.

Spirit false thou hast forgot

All but those who need thee not.

As a lizard with the shade

Of a trembling leaf,

Thou with sorrow art dismay'd;

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Even the sighs of grief

Reproach thee, that thou art not near,
And reproach thou wilt not hear.