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 | The complete works, poetry and prose, of the Rev. Edward Young prefixed, a life of the author, by John Doran ... With eight illustrations on steel, and a portrait. In two volumes |  |
O the long, dark approach through years of pain,
Death's gallery, (might I dare to call it so,)
With dismal doubt and sable terror hung;
Sick Hope's pale lamp its only glimmering ray!
There Fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,
Forbid Self-love itself to flatter there.
How oft I gazed, prophetically sad!
How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles!
In smiles she sunk her grief, to lessen mine.
She spoke me comfort, and increased my pain.
Like powerful armies trenching at a town,
By slow and silent, but resistless, sap,
In his pale progress gently gaining ground,
Death urged his deadly siege; in spite of Art,
Of all the balmy blessings Nature lends
To succour frail humanity. Ye stars,
(Not now first made familiar to my sight,)
And thou, O Moon, bear witness! many a night
He tore the pillow from beneath my head,
Tied down my sore attention to the shock,
By ceaseless depredations on a life
Dearer than that he left me. Dreadful post
Of observation, darker every hour!
Less dread the day that drove me to the brink,
And pointed at Eternity below;
When my soul shudder'd at futurity;
When, on a moment's point, the' important die
Of life and death spun doubtful, ere it fell,
And turn'd up life; my title to more woe.
Death's gallery, (might I dare to call it so,)
With dismal doubt and sable terror hung;
Sick Hope's pale lamp its only glimmering ray!
There Fate my melancholy walk ordain'd,
Forbid Self-love itself to flatter there.
How oft I gazed, prophetically sad!
How oft I saw her dead, while yet in smiles!
In smiles she sunk her grief, to lessen mine.
She spoke me comfort, and increased my pain.
Like powerful armies trenching at a town,
By slow and silent, but resistless, sap,
In his pale progress gently gaining ground,
Death urged his deadly siege; in spite of Art,
Of all the balmy blessings Nature lends
To succour frail humanity. Ye stars,
(Not now first made familiar to my sight,)
And thou, O Moon, bear witness! many a night
He tore the pillow from beneath my head,
Tied down my sore attention to the shock,
By ceaseless depredations on a life
Dearer than that he left me. Dreadful post
Of observation, darker every hour!
Less dread the day that drove me to the brink,
And pointed at Eternity below;
When my soul shudder'd at futurity;
When, on a moment's point, the' important die
Of life and death spun doubtful, ere it fell,
And turn'd up life; my title to more woe.
| The complete works, poetry and prose, of the Rev. Edward Young prefixed, a life of the author, by John Doran ... With eight illustrations on steel, and a portrait. In two volumes | |