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 | The Works of Thomas Love Peacock |  |
Though Pity's self has made thy breast
Its earthly shrine, oh gentle maid!
Shed not thy tears, where Love's last rest
Is sweet beneath the cypress shade;
Whence never voice of tyrant power,
Nor trumpet-blast from rending skies,
Nor winds that howl, nor storms that lower,
Shall bid the sleeping sufferer rise.
But mourn for them, who live to keep
Sad strife with fortune's tempests rude;
For them, who live to toil and weep
In loveless, joyless solitude;
Whose days consume in hope, that flies
Like clouds of gold that fading float,
Still watched with fondlier lingering eyes
As still more dim and more remote.
Oh! wisely, truly, sadly sung
The bard by old Cephisus' side,
(While not with sadder, sweeter tongue,
His own loved nightingale replied:)
—“Man's happiest lot is not to be;
And when we tread life's thorny steep,
Most blest are they, who, earliest free,
Descend to death's eternal sleep.”—
Its earthly shrine, oh gentle maid!
Shed not thy tears, where Love's last rest
Is sweet beneath the cypress shade;
Whence never voice of tyrant power,
Nor trumpet-blast from rending skies,
Nor winds that howl, nor storms that lower,
Shall bid the sleeping sufferer rise.
But mourn for them, who live to keep
Sad strife with fortune's tempests rude;
For them, who live to toil and weep
In loveless, joyless solitude;
Whose days consume in hope, that flies
Like clouds of gold that fading float,
Still watched with fondlier lingering eyes
As still more dim and more remote.
Oh! wisely, truly, sadly sung
The bard by old Cephisus' side,
(While not with sadder, sweeter tongue,
His own loved nightingale replied:)
—“Man's happiest lot is not to be;
And when we tread life's thorny steep,
Most blest are they, who, earliest free,
Descend to death's eternal sleep.”—
| The Works of Thomas Love Peacock | |