Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

SMALLER POEMS, &c.

Tempore quo primùm vestis mihi tradita pura est,
Jucundum cùm ætas florida ver ageret,
Multa satis lusi: non est Dea nescia nostri,
Quæ dulcem curis miscet amaritiem.
Catull. lxvi. 15.

[“Much on my early youth I love to dwell,”]

“Much on my early youth I love to dwell,”
When by my father's side, a stripling boy,
I paced with steps unequal; fain to tell
Of some new-practised game, some new-bought toy.

How oft with bliss, which later days deny,
My prattling tongue its story would repeat!
Bounding beneath his tender smile, how high
With blameless pride my filial heart would beat!

O for those hours of extasy again,
Which thus on life's sweet prime their lustre shed!
The radiant season I invite in vain,
With second beam to gild this orphan head:

It comes not twice. Nor boots it to repine;
I with his ashes soon may mingle mine.

TO THE POST-CHARIOT OF A FRIEND, GOING ABROAD.

O may Auriga's lucid star,
Direct thee, Chariot, on thy way;
Whose whirling wheels from England far
To southern climes my friend convey:
And may no shock his ease invade
From snapping spring, or linch-pin lost;
No crack, save those by post-boys made,
Till Bernard's ice-crown'd cliff be crost.

Steel were his nerves, his sinews brass,
Who first with vaulting footstep rose
Sublime; and from the virgin-pass
Look'd down upon eternal snows:
Who, by the raving storm unscared,
'Mid Alpine precipices strode;
The thundering mass unflinching heard,
And dauntless traced the desperate road.
In vain, to chariot-wheels denied,
The crags their glittering horrours raise;

If skittish mules may climb their side,
And plod secure the air-hung ways.
But man forbidden paths will tread:
Columbus thus, of Japheth sprung,
From virtue's simple sons convey'd
The fire, whose name would taint my song.
Hence the shrunk shank, and carious bone,
Accelerate Nature's slow decay;
And Death, no longer hobbling on,
His ancient crutches flings away.
Montgolfier thus, thro' vacant air,
Elate on buoyant pinion soar'd;
And Spalding thus, too prompt to dare,
Old ocean's wreck-strew'd bed explored.
To wildest flights wild man aspires:
Here Paine would scale th' eternal walls;
And there, as Franklin points his wires,
Disarm'd th' indignant lightning falls.

A considerable star in this constellation, called Capella, is designed (one would suppose) for the guidance of those, who traverse mountains chiefly known to the goat.

[With rapid wing our fairest years move on]

With rapid wing our fairest years move on:
I sigh, my Myra, as again I sing—
Our fairest years move on with rapid wing,
Till all the loveliness of life is gone.

Few are our joys, and fleeting; ere they fly,
Seize their brief grace! Not distant is the date
(Trust me, dear maid) when even thy bloom shall die,
Or scathed by chance, or chased by hurrying fate:

Too soon that “eye's blue languish” will expire;
And mute too soon will sleep that tuneful tongue,
On whose soft sounds entranced attention hung,
As with its melody it shamed the lyre.

Then, ah! my Myra, ere those charms decay,
Give them to love: Even now they haste away!

SONG.

[Say, fond lover, is thy mind]

I

Say, fond lover, is thy mind
By the gentle Muse refin'd?
Hast thou skill to strike the lyre
With thine own Apollo's fire?—
Think not so the maid to move;
Hopeless is a Poet's love:
Rich and high-born dotards tear
From thine arms the venal fair.

II

Haply health's unborrow'd hues
O'er thy cheek their bloom diffuse;
And thy graceful limbs outvie
Phidian forms in symmetry:—
Ah! To Albion's sordid train
Youth and beauty sue in vain:
Rich and high-born dotards tear
From thine arms the venal fair.

III

Though the Muse inspire thy breast;
On thy face though wonder rest,
Wildly gazing; and thy frame
Rival Græcia's proudest fame;—
Sigh unheard, unpitied pine,
If nor rank nor wealth be thine:
Rich and high-born dotards tear
From thine arms the venal fair.

[When first the siren Beauty's face]

—Deus crudeliùs urit,
Quos videt invitos succubuisse sibi.
Tibull. I. viii. 7.

When first the siren Beauty's face
My wandering eye survey'd;
Unmov'd I saw each fraudful grace,
That 'round th' enchantress play'd:

And still, with careless mien elate,
Defied the Paphian's wile;
As ambush'd in a look he sate,
Or couch'd beneath a smile:

And still to rove I madly vow'd
Along the dangerous way,
Secure—where other boasters bow'd
Before the tyrant's sway.

Nor learn'd my breast to heave the sigh,
Or pour the secret heart;
'Till Myra from her beamy eye
Dispatch'd th' unerring dart:

“Fly, fatal shaft” (with cruel zeal
The conscious murderess cried)
“And teach yon haughty boy to feel
“The anguish due to pride.”

To sooth the soul-subduing pain
Awhile I fondly strove;
But combated, alas! in vain,
Th' omnipotence of love.

Then ah! at length, stern power, forbear;
Thy wrath at length forego:
Enough my youth has felt of care,
Enough has tasted woe;

Or if, ordain'd by stubborn fate,
I drag th' eternal chain;
Doom'd, as I bend beneath its weight,
To court relief in vain:

To Myra equal toil impart,
On her thy pang bestow;
Thrill with love's agony her heart,
And bid her suffer too.

[By many sorrows pierc'd before]

Quæritis, undè mihi toties scribantur amores?
Undè meus veniat mollis in ora liber?
Non mî Calliope, non hæc mihi cantat Apollo;
Ingenium nobis ipsa puella facit.
Propert. II. i. 1.

By many sorrows pierc'd before,
In early youth I bow'd;
Nor least the pang my bosom bore,
When love's first fury glow'd:

'Till her harsh medicine Despair,
Severely kind, apply'd;
Tugg'd at the shaft with friendly care,
And wrung it from my side:

Stern is her art, but sure to heal
Love's woes (those woes abound!)
If memory with officious zeal
Vex not the closing wound.

And shall again insidious Hope
With siren voice beguile?
Twice must I with the terrors cope,
That throng a woman's smile?

Upon that fair and faithless main,
Where my young heart was tost,
Shall I embark—to be again
In second ruin lost?

O yes. I reck not, let it come;
Love's tempest I defy:
With conscious rashness court my doom,
And dare—although I die.

100

ON LEAVING A FAVOURITE RESIDENCE.

---, farewell! And with thee too adieu,
Joys left as soon as tasted! They are gone,
Even like some pleasant dream by hasty dawn
Scar'd from the lover's pillow: Fast they flew,

And long will they be absent. I meanwhile
(Sooth'd by the memory of the white-arm'd maid,
With whom among thy moonlight scenes I stray'd)
With melancholy minstrelsy beguile

The lonely hour. But me whate'er betide,
Whether on life's tempestuous ocean tost
Hopeless I view the still-retiring coast,
Or my frail bark propitious Tritons guide

Through smiling seas—on Her may prosperous fate,
With its long train of changeless raptures, wait!

101

ON THE SAME SUBJECT.

Groves, that of late I lov'd so well, adieu!
Dear to my soul, accept its parting sigh:
Yet oft shall Memory your lost shades review,
Still shall you flourish to her faithful eye.

There was a time when through your bowers to rove,
And with untutor'd fingers touch the lyre;
My breast unvisited of other love,
Than such as Phœbus and his train inspire,

Delighted me. Ah! Time of bliss, return
With healing on thy wings!—In vain I cry:
Destin'd in hopeless misery to mourn,
In vain I roam beneath another sky;

And 'mid new scenes the fugitive explore:
For joy shall solace this sad heart no more.

102

WRITTEN AT MATLOCK.

Matlock, as through thy cliff-sprung woods I rove
(Still pausing, while I muse on Youth's brief day:
How fast his shadowy raptures fleet away;
How oft his heart, that seat of faithful love,

Is doom'd to love in vain) my anguish'd mind
Sighs to behold in spiral eddies round
Thy foliage, scatter'd by the wild Northwind,
With faded verdure strew the sallow ground.

—But 'tis the season's wreck: Not unforeseen,
The deepening tempest howls in Autumn's ear;
Me the storm blasted, ere I learn'd to fear
Its fatal rage, while yet my leaf was green:

Scarce had my May begun her soft career,
When stern December clos'd the hasty year.

103

SONG.

[In times so long past (though I still am but young)]

In times so long past (though I still am but young)
That I scarcely their transports can trace,
Enraptur'd I caught the soft lisp of thy tongue;
And totter'd—for then I but totter'd—along,
To clasp thee in childish embrace.

As we grew up together, each day I beheld,
With feelings unkindled before,
Thy yesterday's beauties by new ones excell'd;
Nor, boy as I was, from those beauties withheld
My heart:—Could I offer thee more?

Even now, when the fever of youth is gone by,
And I glow with more temperate fire,
Delighted I dwell on thy soul-beaming eye;
And, heaving perhaps still too ardent a sigh,
Survey thee with chasten'd desire.

Oh! come then and give me, dear Maiden, thy charms;
For life is alas! on the wing:
Our summer ere long will be fled; in these arms
Let me shield thee, my Fair One, from winter's alarms:
Oh! listen to love, while 'tis spring.

104

ADDRESSED TO A LADY, WITH A PRINT OF CORNELIA.

When Rome was yet in antient virtue great,
Ere tyrant Cæsars had unnerv'd the state;
Proud of her toilette's wealth, a modish Fair
The costly hoard to fam'd Cornelia bare:
And, having press'd it on her cold survey,
With conscious triumph claim'd a like display.
Soon as from school her boys, the Gracchi, came;
“Behold my jewels (cried the happy Dame)
“These are the gems a mother most should prize,
“These glitter brightest to maternal eyes.”
Her inmost soul confounded at the view,
The self-admonish'd visitant withdrew.

Such were the matrons virtuous Rome admir'd:
From such sprang patriots who, by toils untir'd,
Even to the last despotic sway defied;
And, vanquish'd in the noble conflict—died.

One such I could, but may not name (for she,
Blind to herself, would deem it flattery)
One who, Cornelia-like, each hour employs
Sweet labour! 'mid the sphere of filial joys:
To courtiers leaves exhausted India's store;
And, rich in living diamonds, asks no more.

FINIS.