The works, in verse and prose, of the late Robert Treat Paine, Jun. Esq ::

Long have the zephyrs, in their sea-green caves,
Shunned the calm bosom of the slumbering waves;
While halcyon Pleasure nursed her tender brood,
Spread her smooth wings, and skimmed the tranquil flood.
The rising gale now curls the lucid seas;
The canvass wantons with the buoyant breeze;
The bark is launched; we throng the crowded shore,
Eye the dark main, and hear the billows roar;
The tender scene unfolds; our bosoms melt;
And silence speaks the throbs, we all have felt.
Here let us pause, and ere our anchors weigh,
And shoreless ocean bounds the vast survey,
Let Friendship, kneeling on the weeping strand,
Kiss her last tribute to her native land.

Sweet, lovely Cam, no more thy rural scenes,
Thy shady arbours, and thy splendid greens,
Thy reverend elms, thy soft Idalian bowers,
Thy rush-clad hamlets, and thy lofty towers,
Thy spicy valleys, and thy opening glades,
Thy falling fountains, and thy silent shades;
No more these dear delights, that once were ours,
Smile time along, nor strew our couch with flowers.

Hail, winding Charles, old Ocean's favourite son,
To his vast urn thy gay meanders run.
Diffusing wealth, thou rollest a liquid mine;
Earth drinks no current, that surpasses thine!
Thy cooling waves succeed the sleeping hearth,
The peasant's fountain, and the muses' bath.
Yet, fairest flood, adieu! our happy day
Like thy smooth stream, has flowed unseen away.
No more thy banks shall bear our sportive feet;
No more thy waves shall quench the dogstar's heat
Our fate reflected in thy face we view;
Thou hast thy ebb, and we must bid adieu!
Hail, happy Harvard! hail, ye sacred groves,
Where Science dwells, and lovely Friendship roves!
Ye tender pleasures, and ye social sweets,
Which softened life, and blessed these tranquil seats!
To part with you—a solemn gloom is spread;
The sigh half-stifled, and the tear half-shed.

Come then, my friends, and, while the willow weaves
A weeping garland with its drooping leaves,
Let Friendship's myrtle in the foliage flow,
And Wisdom's ivy wreath the shaded brow.
Life is a stage, with varied scenery gay,
But scenes more various mark the chequered play.
Virtue and Vice here shine in equal state,
The same their wardrobe, and the same their gait;
Here gay delusions cheat the dazzled eyes,
And bliss and sorrow intermingled rise.
The soil of life their equal growth manures;
One sky supports them, and one sun matures.

Deep in the bosom of each distant clime,
Their roots defy the furrowing share of time.
Alike they bloom, while circling seasons wing
The raving whirlwind and the smiling spring.
One luckless day the extremes of fate surveys,
And one sad hour sees both the tropicks blaze.

A bitter tincture every sweet alloys,
And woes, like heirs, succeed insolvent joys.
Hard is the lot of life, by fears consumed,
Or hopes, that wither, ere they well have bloomed!
Who breathes, may draw the death-infected air;
Who quaffs the nectar, must the poison share.
Untainted pleasures soon the taste would cloy;
Woe forms a relish for returning joy.
The raging storm gives vegetation birth;
And thunders, while they rock, preserve the earth.

Vain are the gilded dreams, that Fancy weaves,
With the light texture of the sybil's leaves.
Sweet are the hours of Life's expanding years,
When drest in splendour, every scene appears.
Romantick hopes illusive phantoms feed;
New prospects open as the old recede;
In flowering verdure, smiling Edens rise,
And isles of pleasure tempt the enamoured eyes;
Still unexplored new beauties strike the sight,
Till Fancy's wings grow weary in their flight.

Resplendent bubbles, decked with every hue,
Whose tints entrance the most enraptured view,

Throng every prospect, gild each rolling hour,
Frame the wild dream, and haunt the silent bower.
These airy forms our fond embrace decoy,
Elude our grasp, and stab expected joy;
Cameleon-like, with every hue they glare,
Their dress the rainbow, and their food the air.
Thus gleams the insect of a summer's night,
The glistering fire-fly's corruscating light.
Awhile it wheels its undistinguished flight
Through the dark bosom of impervious night,
'Till from its opening wings, a transient gleam
Smiles through the dark, and pours a lucid stream;
But while the glitter charms our gazing eyes,
Its wings are folded, and the meteor dies.

Maturer years in swift succession roll,
Enlarge the prospect and dilate the soul;
Tully outstripped lies grovelling in renown,
And Virgil weeps upon his faded crown.
Grouped in one view the extremes of life are joined,
Arabia's bloom with Lapland's ice combined;
Calypso's grotto with the field of arms;
Ajacian fury with Helenian charms;
Bright faulchions lighten in the olive grove,
And helmets mingle with the toys of love.
Here modest Merit mourned her blasted wreath,
While laurels crowned the ghastly scull of Death.
Here towering pedants proudly learnt to sneer
On wits, whom they had sense enough to fear;
The midnight lamp with native genius vied,
Mimicked its lustre, and its fire supplied.

The nuts of grace, the rattles of the stool
Bribed and adorned the blockhead of the school.
O'er Youth's gay paths delusive snares are spread;
Soft Syrens sing, and smile Resistance dead;
Ixion's fate forgot, the busy croud
Pursue a Juno, but embrace a cloud.
From Lethes' stream is filled the flowing bowl,
And sweet oblivion whelms the drowsy soul;
No screams of murdered Time its slumbers break,
And lounging Indolence forgets to wake.
Ease for a while may charm the dormant mind,
Pervert our reason, and our judgment blind;
But, soon, alas! the magick spell will fly,
And tears bedew Reflection's downcast eye.
Corrosive years one downy hour repay;
The bud, too forward, blossoms to decay.

With cherished flames the youthful bosom glows,
And Hope luxuriant in the hot-bed grows.
Self-flattering Fancy here her influence sheds,
Young genius blossoms, and its foliage spreads;
But if too fierce the sultry splendours shine,
And swelling growth distend the aspiring vine,
No skilful hand the excrescent limbs to prune,
At morn to water, and to shade at noon;
In wildly-fertile efflorescence rise
The encumbered branches, and the victim dies.

Thus burning skies o'er India's arid soil
In noblest verdure clothe each blooming isle,
While sickly vapours taint the scorching breeze,
Awake the earthquake, and convulse the seas;

The thirsty glebe exhausts each purling stream,
And Death in ambush glistens from each beam.

But nobler souls an equal temper know,
Nor soar too vainly, nor descend too low.
Heaven's angry bolt first strikes the mountain's head,
And sweeping torrents drench the lowly shed.
Heroick Worth, while nations rise and fall,
Securely propped, beholds this circling ball;
Like the firm nave, which nought can sink or raise,
The whirls of fortune's wheel unmoved surveys.

Ye watchful guardians of our youthful band,
Your worth our praise, your cares our love demand.
Long have your toils the parent's office graced,
Formed the young thought, and pruned the rising taste.
Infantile genius needs the fostering hand,
Its buds to open, and its flowers expand;
And bounteous Heaven this nursery has designed,
To rock the cradle of the infant mind.
Long have you slaked the thirst of ardent youth
From this clear fountain of untainted truth.
Faithful to censure, eager to commend,
To act the critick, and to feel the friend;
Watchful to lend unasking Merit aid,
And beckon modest Virtue from the shade;
These are the blessings, which your smiles bestow;
These are the wreathes, that crown your laureat brow;
And these, enrolled on Memory's faithful page,
Fame shall transcribe, and sound to every age.

And when grey Time shall knit the wrinkled brow,
And wintry age shall shed its mantling snow,
Some reverend father in the chair of state,
Quivering with age, and venerably great,
Shall cast o'er life a retrospective view,
And bless the soil, where infant greatness grew;
And while the long review his breast shall swell,
Here shall his mind with filial fondness dwell;
While transport glistens from the falling tear,
And Death, grown envious at the sight, draws near,
The good old man, with this expiring sigh,
“Let Harvard live,” shall clasp his hands and die.

This sacred temple and this classick grove
Proclaim your merits, and our grief approve.
The painter's skill may shade the glooms of fate,
And fancied woe the griefless eye dilate;
We spurn the glaring tapestry of art;
Truth's noblest pencil is a grateful heart.
Long may your days in gay succession run;
Long may you bask in Fortune's smiling sun;
Long o'er these happy seats may you preside,
The boast of Harvard, and your country's pride.
Our filial bosoms shall your names revere;
Truth has a tongue, and gratitude a tear.
Waves crowd on waves, on ages ages roll,
And we retire, that you may reach the goal.
Here for a while your busy feet may rove,
To cull the flowers of this Lycean grove.
Like you, we passed the distant threshold by,
While Hope looked forward with a wishful eye;

Like you, we gazed on Fame's immortal door;
You tread the path, that we have trod before;
And scarce the sun his annual tour has made
Since we with joy this solemn day surveyed.
But, ah! our joy was but an April morn;
The rose has faded and has left the thorn.
Feel then the wound, before you meet the dart;
Like us you follow, and, like us, must part.

The bloom of youthful years is doomed to fade;
The brightest noon a sullen cloud may shade;
And we, my friends, to whom each bliss is given,
This happy spot, this vicinage of heaven,
Each painful sense, each tender woe endure,
And bleed with wounds, which Friendship cannot cure.
While gaily sparkling from the realms of night,
Smiles the fair morn, and spreads her golden light,
Grown dark with fate, the solemn skies appear,
And distant thunders strike the astonished ear;
The tempest lowers, the rapid moments fly,
And moistening friendship melts in every eye.

Oft, when employed in life's prospective view,
This gloomy hour a mournful tribute drew.
Oft have we shuddered at this solemn day,
And gazed till tears had dimmed the visual ray.
Now the dark scene, which Fancy once surveyed,
And o'er our brightest pleasures cast a shade,
Bids the warm stream of real grief to flow,
The silent elegy of speechless woe.
Long have we wished this painful day removed;
Affection framed the wish, and Hope approved.

Long have we hugged the dream with fond deceit,
And strove by tears to intercede with Fate.
But, ah! in vain, for now the rapid sun
Four annual circuits through the heaven has run;
In our sad ears the solemn dirges ring,
And our last hope is flitting on the wing.

With swifter course the new-born moments fly;
Here wipe the tear, suppress the bursting sigh.

Oft have we rambled o'er the flowery plain,
And freely followed Pleasure's smiling train;
Oft have we wandered o'er the breezy hill,
And traced the windings of the purling rill;
Where the dark forest glooms the silent walk,
Has prattling Echo learnt of us to talk;
Oft on the river's flowery banks we've ranged,
To all the woes of future life estranged;
Oft on the scenes, which airy Fancy drew,
We fondly gazed and fondly thought them true.
But now no more these social sports delight;
No song the ear, no landscape charms the sight.
From grove to grove the airy songsters play,
All nature blooms, and smiling heaven looks gay;
But, ah! for us no verdant meadow blooms;
No songsters warble, and no sun illumes;
These can but lend another shade to woe,
And add new tortures to the poignant blow.
No more we mingle in the sportive scene,
The gay palestra, and the tufted green.

The fatal sheers the slender thread divide,
And sculptured urns the mouldering relicks hide;

Far deeper wounds our bleeding breasts display,
And Fate's most deadly weapon is—to-day.
To-day we part; ye throbs of anguish, rise,
Flow, all ye tears, and heave, ye rending sighs!
Come, lend to Friendship's stifled voice relief,
And melt the lonely hermitage of grief.
Sighs, though in vain, may tell the world we feel,
And tears may soothe the wound, they cannot heal.
To day we launch from this delightful shore,
And Mirth shall cheer, and Friendship charm no more;
We spread the sail o'er life's tumultuous tide;
Ambition's helm, let prudent Reason guide;
Let grey Experience, with her useful chart,
Direct the wishes of the youthful heart.
Where'er kind Heaven shall bend our wide career,
Still let us fan the flame, we've kindled here;
Still let our bosoms burn with equal zeal,
And teach old age the warmth of youth to feel.
But ere the faithful moment bids us part,
Rends every nerve, and racks the throbbing heart,
Let us, while here our fondest prayer ascends,
Swear on this altar, “that we will be friends!”
But, ah! behold the fatal moment fly;
Time cuts the knot, he never could untie.
Adieu! ye scenes, where noblest pleasures dwell!
Ye happy seats, ye sacred walls, farewell!
Adieu, ye guides, and thou enlightened sire;
A long farewell resounds our plaintive lyre;
Adieu, ye youths, that press our tardy heel;
Long may it be, ere you such griefs shall feel!
Wild horrors swim around my startling view;
Fate prompts my tongue, and, oh! my friends, adieu.

University of Virginia Library

A VALEDICTORY POEM