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12
On my Birth-Day.
“E, fornito l' mio tempo a mezzo gli anni.”
Another year!—so soon, so rapid fled,
Already mingled with the countless dead;
Nor left of all its joys, its griefs behind,
A single wreck within my dormant mind;
That mind; still treasuring in its record page,
Each heartfelt scene of my progressive age;
Since first th'internal chaos gradual ran
Its course to order;—Reason first began
T'assume her rights, and embryotic thought
Gleam'd on my soul;—its pains, its blisses brought:
My infant joys,—the slow unfolding sense,
The lively pleasures of adolescence;
The gay ideas smiling Fancy brought,
Th'endearing ties my heart so fondly sought,
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The strength'ning intellect's expanding powers;
The doating glance of fond maternal eyes,
The soft endearments of life's earliest ties;
The anxious warning, that so often glow'd
On those dearlips, whence truth and fondness flow'd;
Those lips that ne'er the stern command impos'd,
Those thrice dear lips;—for ever, ever clos'd!
The griefs with which my later life has teem'd,
The loss of golden hopes I fondly dream'd;
Of glitt'ring expectations pass'd away,
As sun-ting'd vapours of a summer-day!
Each soul-impressing vision it preserv'd,
Nor of life's recent nothings one reserv'd:
Thus can I turn my mem'ry's volume o'er,
Pages with retrospective glance explore;
Thus with rememb'rance view the travel'd maze,
But not the vista of my future days!
What sweet and sad extremes I'm doom'd to know,
From bliss extatic to corrosive woe;
Obscur'd, conceal'd, my future prospects lie,
Nor know I more, than that I'm born to die!
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And fate spin out my life's frail thread so long,
'Till even (the world's burden and my own)
The longing, ling'ring love of life is flown;
Oh! never, never, may I live to know
The pangs that from protracted being flow;
To sadly watch each spirit lov'd depart,
To feel each fibre severing from my heart;
No longer to exist for those I love,
To weep the refted web affection wove!
No more on some fond breast my head recline,
Nor feel the throbbing pulse beat true to mine;
Nor view the eager gaze of fond delight,
Bask in those eyes that bless'd my aching sight;
To feel each glowing passion melt away,
To feel each nobler faculty decay;
A void, a dreadful void, within to find,
And live the tomb of my expiring mind;
To watch imagination's dying flame,
Shooting athwart its last, faint, livid gleam!
And view my fancy to my years a prey,
Pluming her drooping wing and flee away;
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Dispell'd by cold experience, frigid truth:
While time triumphant, claims me all his own,
And my now sensate heart congeals to stone;
One sense alone he leaves (of all bereft)
The sense to feel how desolate I'm left;
To live unlov'd, neglected, and forlorn,
To die; and no kind friend that death to mourn!
Oh! never, never,—better far depart,
While glows each sense, and warmly beats my heart
With youth's fond hopes, and ever golden dreams,
While visionary glory round me beams;
While fancy yet exerts her brightning power,
To gild the great, th'inevitable hour;
Borne on her wing, methinks I glorious soar,
And future worlds of heavenly bliss explore;
Bright prospects open of eternal day,
As from the earth I wing my rapid way;
Resign each anxious joy,—each anxious strife
Relinquish all,—and smile away my life!
Thus those who still retain'd the perfect mind,
The soul's bright energy, the world resign'd;
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And wit still flutter'd with his fleeting breath:
Th'immortal seneca by heaven inspir'd,
Wrote truths divine,—and as he wrote, expir'd!
And lucan losing life's warm, vital tide,
Sung his “Nec sicut vulnere” and died!
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