University of Virginia Library

Umbrageous woods, that lift your aged arms,
And brave the ruthless tempests of the sky;
Storms that despoil the valley's fading charms,
And chase the summer's dying melody;
Ye old retreats of solitude,
Where nought but grief might e'er intrude,
Ere the dark winter spreads his latest gloom,
To your wild reign I come,
To pour the sad and unavailing tear
O'er Henry's early bier,
With deep entranced spirit, dark, yet holy,
And haunt your silent shades in strictest melancholy.
Oh! where, sooth shepherd, are those joyous strains
That charm'd so oft our plains?
While every sylvan dell, and sculptur'd cave,
With wood o'erhung, or wash'd by ocean wave,
Rang to the echo of thy summer reed,
For Pan to thee decreed
An oat to win the ear of morn,
Sweeter than harp or horn;
Old Mersey listening hush'd the hollow roar
Of his high waves, and bade them on the shore
Fall with a shallow tide,
And soft and slowly glide;
The ladies of the flood,
Emerging from their coral haunt,
Upon the golden briny waters stood,
In mute astonish'd mood,
To hear thy verses blither than the chaunt
Of blue-ey'd syrens in their oozy courts,
Where aged Nereus oft resorts
To chide the ocean maids that keep
The fountain waters of the deep;
And oft with mermaid voice would lure thee to their cells,
Waking the hidden voice that dwells
In pearly chambers of their wreathed shells.

Oft at the shut of even,
When thro' the path of heaven
Hesper went forth in starry mantle bright,
And silence slumber'd in the arms of night,
Thy melody would call
Echo from her vaulted hall!
Even the gray hermit in his amice weeds,
With hoary staff and beads,
Brushing the forest dews with sandall'd feet,
Thy pastoral hymn would greet,
And bend his ear to mortal strains so sweet.
Alas! might nought avail thy gentle rhyme,
To soothe the rigour of our ruder clime;
Cold blew the frost winds on thy tender flocks,
That on the tempest-beaten rocks,
Or in the wintry vale below,
Perish'd in drifts of frozen snow,
While thro' thy sorrowing heart disease had spread
The parting throb, and hollow sigh of death,
And thou, lone shepherd, hung thy sickly head,
And all untimely pour'd thy tuneful breath.

Ah me! that thou hadst sought the sunny groves
Of fair Ausonia, and the pasture land
Of Tuscany, where every shepherd roves,
And sings propitious loves;
Or the green marge of Arno's flowery strand,
Or mountain caves of Sicily,
Where, on some olive-shrouded steep,
Thy blue eyes flung across the deep,
Thou hadst awoke the Doric melody,
Or listen'd to the syren's song,
That chant their crisped waves among,
Or breath'd the fragrant wind that blows
Amid the laurel's rustling boughs,
Then hadst thou never died unsung,
And many a votive wreath had o'er thine urn been hung.

O vain presumptive thoughts, thy rigorous doom
Is dealt by fate, and I am come
On travell'd feet, to strew thy hearse
With wild untutor'd verse,
For I had wander'd to the willowy shore
Of hoary Camus fraught with ancient lore;
Where with due feet I wont to tread
His antique walks, and orchard bowers,
Girt with sunny walls and towers,
Conversing with the dead,
Oft till the accustom'd vesper bell
Toll'd the swift flight of meditative hours,
And warn'd my slow feet to the studious cell;
And oft I join'd the ardent crowd,
That at the shrine of science bow'd,
But oftener wander'd to explore
Those woods and deep banks, where of yore
The dark orb'd priest of poesy
First smote his holy minstrelsy.
Yet had I ripen'd hopes with thee to dwell,
Sooth shepherd, in thy ever shaded cell,
With thee as erst upon the eastern lawn,
To wake the blue lids of the cloudy dawn,
On some green hill where the deep fountain runs,
To watch the crimson light of setting suns:
With thee as erst to tread
The forest's leaf-strown bed,
And trace the violet, tempest-born and pale,
Scenting with its thin breath the wintry gale,
With thee to visit in the haunted dell
Storied tower, or fabled well;
With thee, on the far mountain's solitude,
To court the golden cinctur'd sister brood,
Jove's high honour'd progeny,
Daughters of Mnemosyne,
And breathe with trembling lips my verses rude.
And am I only come,
To shroud thee, shepherd, in thy timeless tomb,
To see thy bier with cypress garlands drest,
And the cold turf laid on thy hallow'd breast?
Whilst the rude tempests o'er me rave,
I tear amid the forest's shelter'd walk,
The last late flowers of summer from their stalk,
With sorrowing hand to scatter on thy grave.
O winds that rage along the autumnal sky,
The south may woo you to her rustling bower;
O woods that strew your leaves to fade and die,
Your boughs may flourish in the vernal hour;
O tender families of herb and flower,
That sink and slumber in the cradled earth,
You may again burst forth in purple birth;
O thou lone bird, that mourn'st the dying year,
Shivering and cold amid the stormy night,
For thee revolving planets may appear,
And summer stars may shed their rising light;
O weeping season, dark and wintry now,
The Spring may bind her roses on thy brow,
But who shall wake the eyes that sleep in death,
Or bid the pale lip bloom with purple breath?
O shepherd, dost thou slumber in the vale,
Freshen'd by the immortal gale?
Or midst unnumber'd worlds, that roll
And glitter underneath thy feet,
Seest thou the dark earth's dim discover'd pole,
And many an orb her sister planets meet
Beneath the curtain'd canopy of night;
And the fair seasons take their flight
To the azure realms of day;
And the blithe hours foot their silent way,
Down to the low earth's bourn,
To trace their fateful round, and up to heaven return.
Or wondering at thy heavenly birth,
Broodest thou o'er the distant dream of earth,
And wanderest on the solitary shore,
Fast by the eternal ocean's roar,
Whose golden tide interminably rolls
Upon the shadowy land of souls,
Asking his falling waves to waft to thee
Tidings of mortality!
Shepherd, I bid thee now a long farewell.
Yet while these eyes behold the orb of day,
At noon and eve on thee my thoughts shall dwell,
Till Death enshroud me in his robe of clay,
Whether he call me to the fated tomb,
Like thee in youth's prime bloom,
With locks of auburn, or with tresses hoar,
Thee will I mourn, sweet shepherd, thee deplore.
—Sorrowing, he sung, and then declin'd his head;
And now the queen of heaven had westward led
Her starry ocean, and the streams of night:
And now had risen the still morn's liquid light,
The sunbeams playing on his dewy locks,
The shepherd woke at the gray dawn of day,
Drove thro' the hoary mist his breathing flocks,
And o'er the uplands took his solitary way.