Poems :: :: University of Virginia Library

Can the sorrow-laden heart be touched with free poetic fire?
Can the hand be true that trembles as it sweeps across the lyre?
Sweet floats the linnet's evensong on the scented breeze of May,
The winter thrush pours cheerily his matin roundelay;
But alas! we are too sin-defiled such artless note to learn,
And the mists of earth too rudely quench high thoughts that in us burn;
Ne'er wept those wingèd choristers, no care hath vexed their breast,
They never knew our memories of trouble and unrest.

Yet, Harrow, I should do thee wrong, if no fond lay of mine,
All tuneless though its accents be, were offered on thy shrine.
'Tis sad to part from cherished scenes, and sadder still to mourn
O'er wasted gifts and hours misspent that never can return,
And faintly blending with the strain falls on the listening ear
A dirge-like under-song that tells the end of all things near,

126

For each change in this our outward life to the still eye of faith
Is another barrier broken between our souls and death.

Ah, wherefore thankless do we slight the blessings of to-day?
Why prize no happiness till it has almost passed away?
Is it, that, still unsatisfied, our ardent longings crave
For something which cannot be found on this side of the grave?
The rainbow tints are loveliest when just melting from the view,
When friends are parting from our side, 'tis then we feel them true;
Our holiest sympathies are fed by heart-ennobling fears,
And softest falls the glance of love when it is dimmed by tears.

As Chivalry's sworn votaries watched of old the livelong night,
With their banners waving over them and the Holy Cross in sight,
Till the third sunrise streaked with gold the ruddy Eastern sky,
And they with prayer and vow might don their knightly panoply;—

127

So should the Christian soldier prelusive vigil keep,
And in dews of kindliest influence his youthful senses steep,
Watching his arms, ere he essay the battle-field of life,
To anneal his heart in purity, and nerve him for the strife.

Bright visions thronged their warrior souls, and lit their kindling eyes,
Who knelt at midnight hour to muse on knighthood's high emprise.
They dreamt, perchance, of ladye-love, and the tournay's glittering ring,
How the pen their deeds should chronicle, and the minstrel o'er them sing,
Or vowed a pilgrim vow to wrest from miscreant hands and rude
The sepulchre where Christ was laid, the soil that drank His blood;—
Solemn and glorious dreams, too oft doomed with the morn to fade,
When Time and Chance on yearning hopes their icy touch have laid!

Even thus in boyhood's eager glance, while all around is bright,
Young Fancy revels aureole-crowned with rays of summer light,

128

While yet the heart beats fresh and true, and love is not a name,
But a living power to disentrance the affections' hidden flame;
Ere the smooth cheek has lost its bloom, and thought its early glow,
Or the witness mark of shame hath scarred the yet unfurrowed brow,
Ere manhood's frown has withered the fragrance of our youth,
And manhood's wisdom turned to doubt the blessed hope of truth.

How bright the promise of that hour, how sweet in memory still,
Its careless mirth, its keen desire, its ignorance of ill!
Dear as the grasp of brother hands, when friends are doomed to part,
Whose words shall wake through after years, deep echoes in the heart,—
And pleasant as to longing eyes the mellowed sunset ray
That cheers the unrelenting gloom of a November day,—
So sweet the memory yet so sad, so pleasant the regret,
That 'minds one of those schoolboy days we never can forget.

129

Farewell, farewell,—'tis meet once more to wake the dying strain,
A gentle cadence, ere it sink never to rise again,
As on the incense-breathing air low-chaunted requiems swell,
As sounds the lingering music of the far-off midnight bell.
Youth's dreams are like spring flowerets, that blossom but to die,
When the scorching heat of summer suns glares fiercely from on high;
Memory and Hope within my soul future and past are blending,
The dream is o'er, the morning breaks, but who may tell the ending?

II. ANOTHER FAREWELL.

Sweet is the memory of the days gone by
The well-known voice, the loved familiar spot
We trod so oft, ere Youth's gay buoyancy
Was lost for aye, in Manhood's sterner lot.

'Tis sweet to muse on Childhood's opening prime,
On school-boy's days of careless merriment,
When life rolled o'er us like a Sunday chime
Of church-bells, breathing gladness and content.

130

How bright the dreams of Boyhood's marvelling hour,
The first warm blush of young affection's glow,
The dawning sense of half-unconscious power,
The ready tear which age forbids to flow:—

These once were ours; and, as we linger near
This churchyard-stone, their memory wakes again
At thought of him, who loved to murmur here
The prelude music of that thrilling strain,

Whose full-voiced echoes sounded round our youth,
Striking the key-note of our inner lives,
Blending strange shapes in guise of seeming truth,
With spell, whose witchery still, disowned, survives .

Here passed his boyhood, 'mid the smiles and tears
That chequer life's sweet April; here were nursed
The powers for good or ill, in after years
Doomed, like the thunder's deafening crash, to burst

On souls that felt his mastery, while the keen,
Swift lightning-flash their every thought revealed,
Playing o'er mountain-sides of fadeless green,
Gilding deep founts, erewhile in darkness sealed.

131

Dread power was thine for good or ill, alas!
Full oft misused for evil! But this scene
Suits not with sinful memories,—let them pass,—
Here we but muse of thee as thou hast been

In youth's first spring-time. Here no word of blame,
No bitter curse shall over thee be said:
Speak here your blessing on the Poet's name,
Breathe your kind requiem for the noble dead!

“Byron's Tombstone,” in Harrow Churchyard.