The poetical remains of William Sidney Walker ... Edited with a memoir of the author by the Rev. J. Moultrie |
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A WHIMSEY:
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 | The poetical remains of William Sidney Walker |  |
130
A WHIMSEY:
WRITTEN IN A LADY'S ALBUM.
—“When thought is warm, and fancy flows,
What will not argument sometimes suppose?”
Cowper.
What will not argument sometimes suppose?”
Cowper.
Should chance send down to distant time
This motley thing of prose and rhyme,
Which friendly hands have thickly sown
With others' wisdom—or their own;
How will the men of future days,
(When this one age, with all its blaze
Of science, war, and minstrel lay,
Has vanish'd like a cloud away)
How will they ponder o'er this page,
The little mirror of an age,
Reflecting, as it onward winds,
The outline of departed minds!
How will they scan with eye intent
The sparks of song and sentiment,
Like floating clouds of many a hue,
Strewn o'er the welkin's surface blue!
To them the record shall unfold
What their grave fathers were of old;
What they disliked, and what approved,
And how they thought and how they loved.
—There shall the mingled forms appear,
Of timid Joy, and tender Fear;
Wisdom, with calm looks fix'd above;
The spectre of departed Love;
Ambition's bright and restless eye,
Still chasing Immortality;
And downcast Sorrow, in her shroud;
And young Hope, laughing through the cloud;
And Nature, in her robe of green,
Shall 'midst the varied group be seen.
This motley thing of prose and rhyme,
Which friendly hands have thickly sown
With others' wisdom—or their own;
How will the men of future days,
(When this one age, with all its blaze
Of science, war, and minstrel lay,
Has vanish'd like a cloud away)
How will they ponder o'er this page,
The little mirror of an age,
Reflecting, as it onward winds,
The outline of departed minds!
How will they scan with eye intent
The sparks of song and sentiment,
Like floating clouds of many a hue,
131
To them the record shall unfold
What their grave fathers were of old;
What they disliked, and what approved,
And how they thought and how they loved.
—There shall the mingled forms appear,
Of timid Joy, and tender Fear;
Wisdom, with calm looks fix'd above;
The spectre of departed Love;
Ambition's bright and restless eye,
Still chasing Immortality;
And downcast Sorrow, in her shroud;
And young Hope, laughing through the cloud;
And Nature, in her robe of green,
Shall 'midst the varied group be seen.
Their hearts, as o'er the page they stray,
Shall feel its sympathetic sway;
For the same summer-breeze that blew
In days of yore, delights us too:
And the same loves, and joys, and fears,
Are still man's lot through endless years.
And Hope's full blood shall mantle high,
And Pity weep o'er woes gone by,
And Worth shall kindle at the lays
That flow in Truth's and Virtue's praise;
And youthful Love shall blush, when told
How youthful lovers felt of old;
And Beauty heave the half-heard sigh
For unrequited constancy.
—And they shall think upon the lot
Of those who lived when they were not,
Whose being yet with theirs was twined,
With that sweet feeling, undefined,
Wherewith we view the days gone by
Of unremember'd infancy.
—And while delighted they survey
These relics of an earlier day,
They 'll think well pleased of her, whose hand
Combined them in one fragrant band,
And bade them bloom in endless prime,
Like flow'rets on the tomb of Time.
Shall feel its sympathetic sway;
For the same summer-breeze that blew
In days of yore, delights us too:
And the same loves, and joys, and fears,
Are still man's lot through endless years.
And Hope's full blood shall mantle high,
And Pity weep o'er woes gone by,
132
That flow in Truth's and Virtue's praise;
And youthful Love shall blush, when told
How youthful lovers felt of old;
And Beauty heave the half-heard sigh
For unrequited constancy.
—And they shall think upon the lot
Of those who lived when they were not,
Whose being yet with theirs was twined,
With that sweet feeling, undefined,
Wherewith we view the days gone by
Of unremember'd infancy.
—And while delighted they survey
These relics of an earlier day,
They 'll think well pleased of her, whose hand
Combined them in one fragrant band,
And bade them bloom in endless prime,
Like flow'rets on the tomb of Time.
| The poetical remains of William Sidney Walker | |