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ELEGY

ON A BELOVED SISTER, (WHO DIED, AGED 25, 1789.)

WHEN night's cold shadows wrap the world in gloom,
And weary mortals close their eyes in sleep;
Why do I love to seek one lonely tomb,
And o'er the holy tablet bend, and weep?
There, my fond Sister lies! Death's driving storm
Untimely bore her from this nether sphere!
Though to my voice unanswering, heavenly form!
A brother, weeping, still proclaims thee dear.
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For she was meek and tender as the dove,
Her eye benignant, and her soul, sincere;
Her heart was form'd of sympathy and love,
And every word she spake a saint might hear.
Her voice the sweetest music might transcend;
By nature, gentle, and by grace, refined;
She never made a foe, nor lost a friend,
And dying, left no purer heart behind.
She bade me feel for those whom cares opprest,
And prize the tear which for another flows;
She form'd my opening reason, and supprest
Each worthless hope, or fear, which childhood knows.
And shall I e'er forget thee, and thy worth,
Now death hath call'd thee from a world of care?
Shall other loves, or aught in this low earth,
Tear from my heart the image deepest there?
Sister! beloved, and loving! I will mourn
Thy early loss, as darkness veils the sky;
And, when the first faint thought of morn return,
Before my waking sense thy form shall fly.
By fancy, oft transported, do I stand;
A glimpse of joys eternal fills my mind;
My soul, unbodied, feels her powers expand,
Leaves the low world, and casts its cares behind:
It is thy presence! thine, the vision bright,
That bears my view above this lower earth;
That o'er my eye-ball darts celestial light,
And tells the tale of my immortal birth!
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Let the vain world its loveliest hopes deride,
And check, at fancy's call, the rising tear,
Yet will I cherish, with increasing pride,
The faith that trusts thy guardian spirit near.
For, pleasant 'tis to think, when life is fled,
And the cold grave receives some honour'd name;
The spirit, bound by no material bed,
Exults o'er death, and lives, and acts the same:
Perhaps, e'en now, the tear that from me steals,
To thine attendant form may grief impart;
Perhaps, e'en now, thy conscious spirit feels
An answering pang to that which heaves my heart:
Nor may'st thou deem thy present bliss complete,
Till all, who once were dear, a haven find;
Nor may thy breast with pity cease to beat,
Whilst one loved friend drags heavily behind.
Sometimes, at midnight, with a solemn dread,
I wake, and, doubting, to myself I say;
Joy of my heart, Eliza! art thou dead?—
Laid in a cold, and narrow house of clay?
And must I, too, the common doom fulfil!
These limbs, in being warm, the worms embrace!
Must soon these eyes be closed! this heart be still!
And darkness be my last, long dwelling-place!
Distracting thought, to those who never find
A hope beyond the grave, but I survey
In Death, though arm'd with terrors to the mind,
The glorious precincts of celestial day;
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Thee shall I meet, my Sister! thee, my friend!
Freed from the ills this mortal state annoy;
Soon shall our kindred hearts together blend,
And, what we here have suffered, swell our joy.
Short was thy life, and stormy! — rough the road
Through which thou passedst to a world of rest!
Affliction, with thee, form'd a long abode,
And many a sorrow prey'd upon thy breast!
But thou art now delivered! thou hast sung
The song of triumph in a nobler sphere!
Up, where the trembling stars of night are hung,
Thy soul has usher'd in the eternal year.
Oh may my lot be with thee! may I tread
The spotless path through life which thou hast trod!
And when, in death, I rest my weary head,
Oh may I find my last, best friend, in God!
Do I one blessing crave? thou Power divine!
And for mine own poor self that boon require?—
May all that lives, and moves, and is, be Thine,
And thou be all in all — Eternal Sire!

ON THE DEATH OF A YOUNG LADY.

SWEET Maid! who late didst charm our sight,
And round thy path a lustre shed;
We see thee still in vision bright,
Till memory whispers, thou art dead!
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Veil'd is the future! dim and dark!
When, in our confidence and pride,
We seem about to steer our bark
O'er pleasure's gay, and glittering tide.
Death launches from his ebon throne
The shaft, with terrors charged, supreme;
Which hurries us to worlds unknown,
And sends us down oblivion's stream!
But yesterday, and thou didst stand,
(With naught thy ample gaze to bound,)
Foremost in youth and beauty's band,
Admired, beloved, by all around.
Now thou hast pass'd life's rugged road,
The clod sustains thy peaceful head;
With vault, and worm, is thine abode,
And “clay-cold” is thy lowly bed.
Ye, who your loveliest friend deplore,
And heave affection's fervent sigh;
Think, ere a fleeting hour be o'er,
That you, like her, in dust may lie.
Your moments pass, like sands, away;
Provide for heaven before too late;
Nor leave to an uncertain day,
The interests of an endless state.
They who can call their God their friend,
May look toward death without dismay,
And only they can meet their end
Calm as the summer's closing day.
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Sweet Maid! thy worth shall long remain
The theme of many a friend sincere;
Whilst he who pens the mournful strain,
With their's shall blend the pitying tear.

ON THE DEATH OF THE LATE VENERABLE AND EXCELLENT DR. RYLAND OF BRISTOL.

LO! another saint is fled!
He has fought, and has prevail'd!
Heaven her portal wide has spread,
And our ransomed brother hail'd!
Often in the house of Prayer,
We our hearts together raised,
Often we forgot our care,
While we God, our Maker, praised.
When he urged the better choice,
Spoke of Heaven, or warn'd of Hell;
When we heard his earnest voice
On the Saviour's mercy dwell;
Joy to nobler worlds allied,
Warm'd our heart, and filled our breast;
Oh! our father, friend, and guide!
Blessings on thy memory rest!
Shall thy solemn words, and kind,
Strangely to oblivion pass?
Leave no traces on our mind,
Like an image on the glass?
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To augment thy joys untold,
Gazing from thy blissful sphere,
May the fruits, a thousand fold,
In our hearts and lives appear!
If one soul a crown will gain,
Taught from future wrath to flee;
What reward wilt thou obtain,
For the many born to thee!
Shepherd! child-like! faithful! wise!
(Only to thyself severe!)
With whose name will ever rise,
Sympathies that wake the tear;
Our communion now is o'er,
We thy face shall never view,
Till we meet on yonder shore,
And our intercourse renew.
We the same mysterious road
Thou hast trodden, soon must tread;
We are hastening back to God,
Through the regions of the dead!
May our zeal, like thine, be fired,
From the Hope that cannot fail;
May the Faith, which thee inspired,
Cheer us in the gloomy vale!
May our peace be found the same,
When to Jordan's billows led!
To the followers of the Lamb—
Death is not the King of Dread!
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LINES ON THE DEATH OF A BELOVED NIECE,

WHO DIED, FEBRUARY 1825, AGED 18.

1

WE yield our treasure to the dust!
A lovely blossom, torn away!
Lord, we would own thee kind and just,
Thou art the potter! we are clay!

2

Yet nature, still, but half resign'd,
Speaks through the burning tears that start;
How hard to rend the cords that bind,
And to the loved-one, say, “Depart!”

3

To mark her thrice six years unfold,
With hopes, so soon to take their flight!
Her intellect, of amplest mould,
Just opening, to expire in night!

4

Her voice, mellifluous as the lyre;
The wit that charmed, or grave, or gay;
The smile benign; the eye of fire;
Pass'd, like the summer cloud, away!

5

Yet not so pass, her zeal and love,
These boast their amaranthine dyes:
The feeblest faith hath links above,
That draw the spirit to the skies.
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6

What is our mind's procession, strange!
Disrobed of flesh, renew'd, refined!
Thought shudders at its trackless range,
That suns and systems leaves behind!

7

O, hear, ye young! her tenderest care
Was, just retiring from the earth,
That you might for that hour prepare,
When all, but Christ, is nothing worth.

8

Farewell, bless'd spirit! hope sedate
Looks on, while tears bedew our eye,
To meet thee in that happier state,
For which we live, and dare to die.

MONODY ON JOHN HENDERSON, A. B.

(LATE OF PEMBROKE COLLEGE, OXFORD.)

WHILST Pity droop'd her head and Genius sigh'd,
In life's warm prime, the Friend of Virtue died!
As o'er thy tomb, my Henderson! I bend,
Shall I not praise thee? Scholar! Christian! Friend!
The tears which o'er a Brother's recent grave,
Fond Nature sheds, those copious tears I gave;
But now that Time her softening hues has brought,
And mellow'd anguish into pensive thought;
Since through the varying scenes of life I've pass'd,
Comparing still the former with the last,
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I prize thee more! The Great, the Learn'd, I see,
Yet Memory turns from little men to thee,
And views, with smiles, that light her trembling tear,
Thy Genius, destin'd for a nobler sphere.
If human spirits then begin to live,
When they mortality's frail robe receive;
And, born to endless being, urge their way,
Progressive travellers through the eternal day;
Dart wide the glance; yet, dart on God alone,
Approaching still his ever-distant throne;
If, e'en the unletter'd Peasant, in that flight,
Shall soar beyond a Newton's earthly height,
To what shall he attain, whose infant scan,
Pierc'd through the frames of nature, and of man?
Indulgent Heaven, to raise our grovelling souls
To glorious possibilities, unfolds
To the rapt gaze, one being here and there,
On whom he pours a rich luxuriant care;
To whom he gives, the mind of daring flight—
The brow of intellect, the eye of light.
And such was Henderson; who came to show
What Heaven could teach to man, and man could know.
'Twas his, the bounds of science to explore,
And scatter light, where darkness dwelt before.
Ere manhood's prime, his soul had run the round
Of human knowledge, simple or profound;
Alike could fathom mind, and, lucid, pry,
Where, with his suns, the zodiac belts the sky;
Or stoop to rear the flower, or prune the tree,
Or roll the school-boy's marble on his knee.
E'en as the lark, by loftier flight opprest,
That seeks at eve, her calm and lowly nest;
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Who, when new vigour friendly sleep supplies,
And light, returning, streaks the orient skies,
Up-soaring, calls the opening morn her own,
And revels in the tide of new-born day, alone.
Not souls, from him, lay ambush'd, he could trace
The mute, unlying language of the face;
In manhood's varying features, knew to read
The ruling passion stamp'd, the habitual deed;
And, through the acorn's fibrils, saw the hour
When the tall oak, defied the tempest's power.
Though like an eagle he could stand sublime
On summits, which no toil might hope to climb;
And though, whene'er he spake, the wondering sage
Approved his wisdom, and forgot his age;
Yet did kind Heaven one worthier gift impart,
The priceless treasure of a lowly heart!
O hear, thou proud one! thou, whose soul assumes
Wisdom's sage robe, or Wit's attractive plumes,
Though Learning's Alpine height, before him shone,
He, on the footstool, rear'd a nobler throne:
E'en children doated on his accent mild,
And sported, careless, round their fellow child.
Ye sons of calumny! go, hide your head!
Away, ye Vampires, that devour the dead!
Who fain would force the long-clos'd wound to bleed,
And hunt through Paradise to find a weed.
When droop'd his frame beneath its restless lord,
And cut its sheath, the keenly-temper'd sword;
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What, if an artificial aid he sought,
Worn out with prodigality of thought!
What, if his frail car driven with heedless force,
He fired the wheels, in his too rapid course!
'Tis true, the midnight bowl he lov'd to share,
Yet never cloud it rais'd, or maniac glare;
But, only made, with stimulation kind,
The body wakeful to th' unsleeping mind;
But only, (till unmechanized by death,)
Kept the pipe vocal to the player's breath.
With wonted thought, with loftier eloquence,
Truth's sacred precepts, would he then dispense:
So fair the effect, that Virtue made a pause,
And only, not forgave the faulty cause.
Guarded with pious joy, and vestal care,
Those precious hours, let memory, sacred, bear,
When o'er his couch, with tears, I nightly hung,
And drank the words of wisdom from his tongue.
The simplest truths, that else, had quickly fled,
Strike, with deep meaning, from a sick friend's bed:
How richly, then, his precepts, must I prize,
Lov'd by the good, and echo'd by the wise.
I sorrow that thy life should pass away,
That thou should'st mingle with inglorious clay,
And leave no test, by which the future time,
Might hear thee still, and learn thy soul sublime!
But, brief the race to thee ordain'd to run,
Clouds soon obscured the splendour of thy sun!—
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And how would thousands, now with chaplets crown'd,
Into Oblivion's gulf, have plunged, profound,
If they, when thrice ten years had run their race,
Like thee, had sunk, into the grave's embrace.
Where were a Shakspeare's honours, had he died
In early life, like thee? — his Country's Pride!
Where were a Milton's wreath — that Bard Divine!
Had death o'erwhelm'd him at an age like thine?
Yet mortals ne'er their erring praise bestow
On those, who, having pass'd their span below,
Bequeath no gifts, that after years might name,
With compass, and with line, their right to fame.—
Must we pronounce, all barrenness, the mind
Which hath not left memorial, fair, behind?—
Ten thousand secret springs combine their spells
To rouse or damp the fire where Genius dwells!—
Ye honour'd Dead! whom diffidence restrained,
Ye noble Souls! whom adverse fortune chain'd,
Binding to earth, who else had pierced the sky,
Ye pure and heaven-born Spirits! doom'd to die
Before your minds disclosed their precious store,
Before your eagle pinions learn'd to soar!
Shall ye, endued with such voluptuous bloom,
Pass on, unnoticed, to the silent tomb,
Nor one, revolve upon the future day,
When fruit should chase the blossom from the spray?
Do not the fairest flowers in Nature's field,
Wrapt in themselves, full oft, no fragrance yield?
Shall man prescribe th' Almighty's aims and ends,
And call all vain, but what he comprehends?—
Some seeds expand on earth, and charm our sight,
Whilst many a soul forsakes these realms of night,
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And, with him, bears the Germ, ordain'd to rise
Mid' more congenial suns, and brighter skies.
To blank forgetfulness, what myriads glide!
And must thou, Henderson! augment the tide?
Is there no tower, or steadfast rock, to climb,
And save thee, from the sweeping flood of Time?
Ah no! I hear the surge of Lethe rave,
I see thee whelmed in his remorseless wave!—
A host shall pass thee in the road to praise,
Whose light had died before thy sun-like blaze,
Hadst thou, with all the effulgence Nature gave,
Unveil'd thy soul; but, to an early grave,
Thy steps descended! Death's untimely blast
Thy honours nipp'd, and a dark mantle cast
O'er all thy worth and greatness! — Comet bright!
That, in a hundred years, once pours its light
On this our lower earth, and, then retires
To blend, with distant worlds, its ardent fires!
Strangers may smile, incredulous, to see
The funeral honours, friendship pays to thee;
Whilst those who saw thy worth, thy talents knew,
Will blame the line which gives but — half thy due.
Though thy discourse was clothed in living green,
Whence servile dulness might rich harvests glean;
Though thou, in all thy plenitude of power,
Didst pearls, around thy path, profusely shower,
With roses, fresh and fair, (that, haply, now
Compose the garland for a stranger's brow,
Whilst honours, due to thee, another shares,
As the full foliage hides the limb that bears;)
Yet, these are fleeting clouds from fairy land—
A tottering fabric, on a base of sand!
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For, like morn's star, before the orb of day,
As years advance, thy memory fades away;
One generation doubts, the next denies,
And, robbed of oil, thy trembling taper dies!
Clouds, dark and threatening, float before my sight!
The Star, that led the train, expires in night!
Though born to teach, thyself, by Nature taught,
When all who knew thee, to the grave are brought;
When men decide from symbols left behind,
And, with false standards, measure mind with mind;
Since no broad base of thought was left by thee,
On which to found an immortality;
What puny spirit may not soon arise,
Contest thy honours, or dispute thy prize?—
Perchance, as time's swift current rolls along,
Thy name, on earth, may live, but in this song!
Thou, who could'st Genius' brightest sons outshine,
Depend for fame, on Cottle's artless line!
Brief is the pride of man! one passing hour,
And human glory withers like the flower!
Where now is all the sense that once was thine,
The grace that charmed us, and the wit divine?
Where are those lips that play'd so well their part?—
And where that eye which analyzed the heart?
Cold in the grave, those lips, the worms caress!
And that bright eye is dim and motionless!—
As thou hadst long Truth's holy empire spread,
So Truth was honour'd when thy Spirit fled.
Oh, hither come, all ye, who dare deride
That faith, which blooms alone by Virtue's side;
Who rashly spurn, what wiser minds receive,
And just have wit enough to disbelieve:
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Or ye, who pine for intellectual food,
And, o'er the void of cold conjecture, brood;
While many a dark and cheerless glance you cast,
Toward that dread foe which must o'ertake at last!
Oh, hither come! from me, the mourner, hear
What tranquil smiles a Christian's lips can wear,
When some kind angel sooths the labouring breath,
And lifts th' emancipating wand of death.
Then only not the friend of all mankind,
When to thyself a foe! farewell, great mind;
We wander, tearful, through this vale below,
But thou art there, where tears no longer flow;
Where Love and Joy eternal vigils hold,
And scatter healing as their wings unfold;
Where souls, their radiant course, for ever run,
Like planets, circling the Almighty Sun.
If friendship be a flower, whose am'ranth bloom
Endures that heavenly clime, beyond the tomb,
I, haply I, thy honour'd form may see;
And thou, perchance, not sad, remember me:
E'en thou mayst hail my freedom from life's chain,
And, be my loved Instructor, once again;—
Dispel the mists, upborne, by errors' rays,
Unfold the doors of Wisdom to my gaze,
And teach mine eye, to grasp, with nobler sense,
The dark, mysterious rounds of Providence.
Upon the thought, with solemn joy, I dwell,
Till that blest hour, great mind, again, farewell!
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