Poems and Songs :: :: University of Virginia Library

In the mild close of an hot Summers day,
When a cool Breeze had fann'd the Air,
And Heaven's face look'd smooth and fair;
Lovely as sleeping Infants be,
That in their slumber smiling lie
Dandled on their Mothers Knee,
You hear no cry,
No harsh, nor inharmonious voice,
But all is innocence without a noise:
When every sweet, which the Sun's greedy Ray
So lately from us drew,
Began to trickle down again in dew;

Weary, and faint, and full of thought,
Though for what cause I knew not well,
What I ail'd, I could not tell,
I sate me down at an ag'd Poplar's root,
Whose chiding leaves excepted and my breast,
All the impertinently-busi'd-wolrd inclin'd to rest.

II.

I list'ned heedfully around,
But not a whisper there was found.
The murmuring Brook hard by,
As heavy, and as dull as I,
Seem'd drowsily along to creep;
It ran with undiscovered pace,
And if a Pebble stop'd the lazy race,
'Twas but as if it started in its sleep.
Echo her self, that ever lent an ear
To any piteous moan,
Wont to groan with them that groan,
Echo her self was speechless here.

Thrice did I sigh, Thrice miserably cry,
Ai me! the Nymph ai me! would not reply,
Or churlish, or she was asleep for company.

III.

There did I sit and sadly call to mind
Far and near, all I could find,
All the Pleasures, all the Cares,
The Jealousies, the Fears,
All the incertainties of thirty years,
From that most inauspicious hour
Which gave me breath;
To that in which the fair Amira's power
First made me wish for Death:
And yet Amira's not unkind;
She never gave me angry word,
Never my mean address abhorr'd;
Beauteous her face, beauteous her mind:

Yet something dreadful in her eyes I saw
Which ever kept my faultring tongue in aw,
And gave my panting Soul a Law.
So have I seen a modest Beggar stand,
Worn out with age, and being oft deny'd,
On his heart he lay'd his hand;
And though he look'd as if he would have dy'd
The needy Wretch no Alms did crave:
He durst not ask for what he fear'd he should not have

IV.

I thought on every pensive thing,
That might my passion strongly move,
That might the sweetest sadness bring;
Oft did I think on Death, and oft of Love,
The triumphs of the little God, and that same gastly King
The gastly King, what has he done?
How his pale Territories spread!

Strait scantlings now of consecrated ground
His swelling Empire cannot bound,
But every day new Colonies of dead
Enhance his Conquests, and advance his Throne.
The mighty City sav'd from storms of War,
Exempted from the Crimson Floud,
When all the Land o're-flow'd with bloud,
Stoop's yet once more to a new Conquerour:
The City which so many Rival bred,
Sackcloath is on her loyns, and ashes on her head.

V.

When will the frowning Heav'n begin to smile?
Those pitchy clouds be overblown,
That hide the mighty Town,
That I may see the mighty Pyle!
When will the angry Angel cease to slay;
And turn his brandish'd Sword away

From that illustrious Golgotha,
London, the great Aceldama!
When will that stately Landscape open lie,
The mist withdrawn that intercepts my eye!
That heap of Pyramids appear,
Which now, too much like those of Egypt are:
Eternal Monuments of Pride and Sin,
Magnificent and tall without, but dead mens bones within.