The Demon of Destiny :: :: University of Virginia Library

His hopeless songs, the nestless bird,
That's cag'd afar from woodland bowers,
For pastime sings, heard or unheard,
To wile away the weary hours:
So are my chamber'd moments spent,
“Dalhousie, of an auld descent.”

II

Embalm'd by gratitude, entire,
I still remembrances behold,—
When Hope, all-shivering, needed fire,
And warm'd, resolv'd to face the cold:
Cheer'd by the shelter then bestow'd,
I dar'd a dark and drifted road.

III

The worth of gift or grant, my Lord,
Can ne'er in sterling well be known:
The value of the heart'ning word
Is in the kindness of the tone.
Thus feeling made the widow's mite
A pearl in the Appraiser's sight.

IV

Although your Lordship may forget
The boon which I so much esteem,
I still delight to own the debt;
But how to pay, is now a dream,—
For all my vernal blossoms shed,
Are crush'd by Fortune's truant tread.

V

Now pale Disease, with folded hands,
Sits eyeing time's life-measuring glass:
How slowly ebb the ebbing sands!
How ghastly grows the churchyard grass!
But fast or slow, or brown or green,
Soon all must be like what has been.

VI

But ere I, moveless, mov'd shall be
To where the weary may find rest,
The debt that's justly due to thee
Is now in feeling own'd, confest,—
That no executor may say,
I scrupl'd e'er in heart to pay.