University of Virginia Library

Goddess of downcast eye, upon whose brow
Misfortune's hand seems dimly to have drawn
Her tints of pining hue, to thee belong
The visionary tribes of busy thought
That croud in nameless shapes the mental eye;
Ah! teach me, gentle maid, with hermit step,
Thy haunts to find, and ever at thy shrine,
By fairy hands with mournful cypress hung,
To bend unseen an humble votary.

Lost in sweet silent thought at eventide,
Thou wakeful lov'st to sit by river dank,
In shade of glen remote, or bosom'd bower,
And ponder pleasures past with fond regret,
Like wither'd flowers that once indeed were sweet,
'Till rous'd by softest voice of village maid,
In russet weeds bedight, with dainty hand,
Who turns the snow-white wool on simple wheel,
Cheating slow time with rustic madrigal:
Thou meet'st the faintest sunbeam of the East
That gilds the heath-thyme and the broomleaf wild;
Ere shepherd's boy has left his lowly cot,
And heard the woodland cuckow's mattin voice;
Ere Dian's nymphs, who, clad in April green,
Face the keen gale on Cynthus' beetling brow,
Have dash'd the sparkling dew with buskin'd feet,
Or shook with mellow horn the distant dale.

When bleak December chills with icy hand
The drooping features of the lingering year,
And warns the wilder'd wanderer of home,
I meet thee listening to the hollow blast,
With musing ear, what time by winter's fire
The social family of boon content
Their evening group with smiling faces form.
Yours is the hopeless youth whom luckless love
Has crown'd unseemly with a willow wreath,
In sad requital for his vows sincere;
His last fond sigh is yours, his longing look,
When lost for aye he quits his own heart's love,
And views her parting step and waving hand.
Lead him, indulgent Power! to tangled glade
That mellow gleams beneath mild evening's star;
Or tall green forest hush'd in deep repose,
With hamlets thin besprent, and ruins grey,
That know no footstep save the traveller's;
Where Taliessin in fam'd days long past,
And many a bard whose tuneful hand is cold,
Call'd forth their fabling numbers, and awoke
The lion souls of Cambria's warlike sons;
Near Teivi's haunted stream, or Menai's flood,
Whose banks with wild embroidery Nature fring'd,
And left her shaggy outline, that disdains
The tawdry finish of the harlot art.
Here lap his soul in bland forgetfulness,
Teach him in peace to wear the heavy hour,
And on the dimple of his faded cheek,
From whence the rose has long a truant been,
A few kind tears for pity's sake let fall.
As on he thunders 'midst a shrinking world
With threatning gait and blood-stain'd sword in hand,
With tacit sigh, as sacred as the tears,
That Angels shed when envious Satan fell,
Thou view'st Ambition for a brittle crown
Cut his fell passage through the hearts of kings;
His little day in clouds for ever set,
At last unknell'd Oblivion's prey he falls,
Left to the naked blast, and e'en deny'd,
The cheap and nauseous breath of rabble vile;
No lay unletter'd marks the spot remote
Where his poor ashes with the common herd
Of clay-cold mortals find their last abode;
No face of friend, in decent sorrow sunk,
His name remembers or his turf protects.
If such the rugged path that leads to fame,
Each splendid hope and nobler aim forgot,
Oh God! I'd rather be a looby peasant,
Eat my brown bread and fatten in the sun
On bench by highway side, or cottage door,
Than wait th' insulting nod of abject power,
Than dog and fawn with base humility,
To catch her pamper'd ear and Proteus smile.

With thee o'er many a scatterd wreck of fate,
Much may I love to cast a pensive eye;
The Castle's shatter'd front of rough aspect,
High on the naked hill like faulcon perch'd;
The moated hall in lap of lonely dell,
From 'midst embrowning trees obscurely seen;
Oft may I mark with you, with you exclaim,
“In days of yore with old magnificence
“Here dwelt the baron bold or gallant knight;
“Here in this hall their massy armour hung;
“Here, at the gorgeous tilt or tournament,
“Oft would the bards awake th' enlivening string
“Of airy harps to deeds of chivalry;
“Struck by the magic of whose minstrel chime,
“The sun-burnt ploughman as he hied him home,
“Would oft uplift his brow in mute amaze,
“And catch with ravish'd ear the far-off sound:
“Here oft the rafter'd roofs full blithly sung
“With tunes of Chevy Chace and Hardiknute;
“Nor wanting were there, to inspire the dance,
“Kind blue-ey'd maids full fair and peerless deem'd,
“Who lent their tempting looks and softest smiles.”

Ah! let me rove with thee at dusky eve
That desolated pile of Gothic mould,
Where the lone lapse of yon sequester'd stream,
Winding its wave neglected near the spot,
With the wild music of its murmuring,
Suits the sad genius of the sacred place;
Where Superstition o'er the paly lamp
Long with sunk eye her midnight vespers sung;
Give me to stand aghast, as by the Moon,
Her supplicating martyr'd form half seen,
Bent on the fragment of a broken cross,
I view, while darkling pours Nyctimene
Her deathlike watch-song in the ear of Night;
Or from the lengthening aile, or fretted roof,
Brushes with sailing wing the stagnant dew:
Here Time who daily, in his viewless flight,
Still wider throws oblivion's deep'ning shade,
Now on the mouldering tomb in grim state sits,
And laughs at all the baseless hopes of man.

Child of the potent spell and nimble eye,
Young Fancy, oft in rainbow vest array'd,
Points to new scenes that in succession pass
Across the wond'rous mirror that she bears,
And bids thy unsated soul and wandering eye
A wider range o'er all her prospects take:
Lo, at her call, New-Zealand's wastes arise!
Casting their shadows far along the main,
Whose brows cloud-cap'd in joyless majesty,
No human foot hath trod since time began;
Here death-like silence ever-brooding dwells,
Save when the watching sailor startled hears,
Far from his native land at darksome night,
The shrill-ton'd petrel, or the penguin's voice,
That skim their trackless flight on lonely wing,
Through the bleak regions of a nameless main:
Here danger stalks and drinks with glutted ear
The wearied sailor's moan, and fruitless sigh,
Who, as he slowly cuts his daring way,
Affrighted drops his axe, and stops awhile,
To hear the jarring echoes lengthen'd din,
That fling from pathless cliffs their sullen sound:
Oft here the fiend his grisly visage shews,
His limbs of giant form in vesture clad
Of drear collected ice and stiffened snow,
The same he wore a thousand years ago,
That thwarts the sun-beam and endures the day.

'Tis thus, by Fancy shewn, thou kenn'st entranc'd
Lone tangled woods, and ever stagnant lakes,
That know no zephyr pure or temperate gale,
By baleful Tigris banks, where, oft they say,
As late in sullen march for prey he prowls,
The tawny lion sees his shadow'd form,
At silent midnight by the moon's pale gleam,
On the broad surface of the dark deep wave;
Here parch'd at midday oft the passenger
Invokes with lingering hope the tardy breeze,
And oft with silent anguish thinks in vain
On Europe's milder air and silver Springs.

Thou unappall'd canst view astouding fear
With ghastly visions wild, and train unblest
Of ashy fiends, at dead of murky night,
Who catch the fleeting soul, and slowly pace
With visage dimly seen and beckoning hand,
Of shadowy forms that ever on the wing
Flit by the tedious couch of wan despair,
Methinks I hear him with impatient tongue,
The lagging minutes chide, whilst sad he sits
And notes their secret lapse with shaking head,
See, see, with tearless glance they mark his fall
And close his beamless eye, who trembling meets,
A late repentance, and an early grave.

With thine and elsin fancy's dreams well pleas'd,
Safe in the lowly vale of letter'd ease,
From all the dull buffoonery of life,
Thy sacred influence grateful may I own,
Nor 'till old age shall lead me to my tomb
Quit thee and all thy charms with many a tear.

On Omole or cold Soracte's top,
Singing defiance to the threatning storm,
Thus the lone bird in winter's rudest hour
Hid in some cavern shrouds its ruffled plumes,
And through the long, long night, regardless hears
The wild wind's keenest blast and dashing rain.