University of Virginia Library

The night has settled down. A dewy hush
Hangs o'er the forest, save when fitful gusts
Vex the tall pines with murmurs. Spring is here,
With breath all incense, and with cheek all bloom,
And voice of many minstrels. Balmy airs
Creep gently to my bosom, and beguile
Each feeling into freshness. I will forth,
And gaze upon the stars—the uncounted stars—
Holding high watch in heaven—still high, still bright,
Though the storm gathers round the sacred hill,
And shakes the cottage roof-tree. There they shine,
In well-remember'd youth. They bear me back,
With strange persuasiveness, to the old time
And happy hours of boyhood. There's no change
In all their virgin glory. Clouds that roll,
And congregate in the azure deeps of heaven,
In wild debate and darkness, pass away,
Leaving them bright in the same beauty still,
Defying, in the progress of the years,
All change; and rising ever from the night,
In soft and dewy splendor as at first,
When, golden footprints of the Eternal steps,
They paved the walks of heaven, and grew to eyes
Beckoning the feet of man. Ah! would his eyes
Behold them, with meet yearning to pursue
The holy heights they counsel! Would his soul
Claim kindred with the happy forms that now
Walk by their blessed guidance—walk in heaven,
In paths of the Good Shepherd! Then were earth
Deserving of their beauty: then were man,
Already following, step by step, their points
To the One Presence—at each onward step
Leaving new lights that cheer his brother on,
In a like progress. Happily they shine,
As in his hours of music and of youth,
When every breath of the fresh-coming breeze,
And every darting vision of the cloud,
Gleam of the day and glimmer of the night,
Brought to the craving spirit harmony,
And bless'd each fond assurance of the hope
With sweetest confirmation. Still they shine,
And dear the story of their early prime—
And his—the conscious worshipper may read
In their enduring presence. Happiest tales
Of innocence and joy, events and hours,
That never more return. These they record,
Renew and hallow, with their own pure rays,
When blight of age is on the frame—when grief
Weighs the vex'd heart to earth—when all beside,
The father, and the mother, and the friend,
Speak in decaying syllables—dread proof
Of worse decay!—and that sad chronicler,
Feeble and failing in excess of years,
Old Memory, tottering from his mossy cell,
Stops with the imperfect legend on his lips.
And drowses into dream. No change like this
Falls on their golden-eyed veracity,
Takes from the silvery truths that line their lips,
Or stales their lovely aspects. Well they know
The years they never feel; see, without dread,
The storm that rises and the bolt that falls,
The age that chills, the apathy that chokes,
The death that withers all that blooms below,
Yet smile they on as ever, sweetly bright,
Serene, in their security from all
The change that troubles man!

Yet, hill and tree
Change with the season—with the alter'd heart,
And weak and withering muscle. Ancient groves,
That shelter'd me in childhood, have given place
To gaudy gardens; and the solemn oaks,
That heard the first prayers of my youthful heart
For greatness, and a life beyond their own—
Lo! in their stead, a maiden's slender hand
Tutors green vines, and purple buds, and flowers,
As frail as her own fancies. At each step
I miss some old companion of my walks,
Memorial of the happy hours of youth,
Whose presence had brought back a thousand joys,
And images that took the shape of joys—
The loveliest masquers, and all innocent—
That vanish'd with the rest. I would recall,
But vainly, each lost presence; and the sigh
That mourns the dear memorials now no more,
Counsels desires that to the mortal eye
Commend no mortal images. The thought
Grasps vainly, right and left, whereon to hold,
And droops, as one grown hopeless of support,
That once, with native strength for every strife,
Scorn'd succor from without. The earth denies
Her bosom for repose—the shade is gone
That offer'd grateful shelter to the eye;
And the dear aspects, which had each its birth
Twinn'd with some proud affection,—they depart,
In mournful robes of shadow that disguise
Each lineament of love.

Ah! not with these,
The perishing things that suffer from decay,
Seek we the sweet memorials of our youth—
The youth that seem'd immortal—youth that bloom'd
With hues and hopes of heaven,—firing its heart
With aspirations for eternal life,
Perpetual triumphs, and the ambitious thirst
Still for new fields and empires of domain!
In tokens of the soul—that craving thirst
That earth supplies not—in the undying things,
That man can never change—that mock his fate
With never-changing sweet serenity,
Assured of a security that builds
Upon the steadfast rock, 'gainst which the storm
Beats through successive ages, but to prove
How fast its bulwarks—how eternally
Sunk in the innate principle of things,
It draws, as to the inevitable heart,
Its growth from all the rest!—to these we turn
For the memorials precious to our youth:—
That season when the Fancy is a god—
Hope a conviction—Love an instinct—Truth,
The generous friend that ever by our side,
Hath still the sweetest story for the ear,
And wins us on our way!

Ah! stars,—though taught,
That ye too, in the inevitable doom,
Must perish like the rest—grow dim and fade,
Having no eyes of beauty for the eyes
That look to ye in beauty—yet your light
Brings back all boyhood's blessings! In my heart
Stand up the old divinities anew.
I hear their well-known voices, see their eyes
Shining once more in mine, and straight forget
That I have wept their loss in many tears,
Mix'd with reproaches—bitter, sad regrets,
Self-chidings, and the memory of wrongs,
Endured, inflicted, suffer'd, and avenged!

As I behold ye now, ye bring me back
The treasures of my boyhood. All is mine
That I had once surrender'd. Scarce a scene
Of childish prank or merriment, but comes,
With all the freshness of the infant time,
Back to my recollection. The old school,
The noisy rabble, the tumultuous cries—
The green, remember'd in the wintry day,
For the encounter of the flying ball—
The marble play, the hoop, the top, the kite,
And, when the ambition prompted higher games,
The battle-array and conflict—friends and foes
Mix'd in the wild melêe, with shouts of might
Triumphant o'er the clamors of retreat!

These, in their regular seasons, with their deeds,
Their incidents of happiness or pain,
In the revival of old memories,
Your lovely lights restore: nor these alone!
The chroniclers of riper years ye grow,
And loftier thoughts and fancies; when my heart
First took ye for sweet counsellors, and loved
To wander in your evening lights, and dream
Of other eyes that watch'd ye from afar,
At the same hour—and of another heart
That gush'd in yearning sympathy with mine!
And, as the years flew by—as I became
Warier, yet more devoted—fix'd and strong—
Growing in the affections and the thoughts
When growth had ceased in stature—then, when life,
Wing'd with impetuous passions, darted by—
And voices grew into a spell, that hung,
Through the dim hours of night, about the heart,
Making it tremble strangely;—when dark eyes
Were planets, having power upon the soul,
As fated, dimly, at nativity;—
And older men were monitors too dull
For passionate youth,—and all our oracles
Were still mysterious counsellors to love,
And faith, and confident trust for all who brought
The meet credential of a faith like ours,
Gushing with sweetest overflow, and fond
Of its own tears and weaknesses.—Ah! then,
How precious was your language! What dear strains
Of promise ye pour'd forth,—in sounds that made
The impatient soul leap upward into flight,
The skies stoop down and yield to every wish,
While earth, embraced by heaven, instinct with love,
And blessing, had forgot all fears of death!

The brightness of your age, in every change,
Mocks that which palsies man. Dim centuries
That saw your fresh beginnings with delight,
Are swallow'd in the ocean-flood of years,
Or crowd with ruin the gray sands of Time,
Who still, with appetite and thirst unslaked—
Active but unappeased—voracious still,
Must swallow what remains. Sweet images,
Whose memories wake our song—whose forms abide—
The heart's ideal standards of delight—
Are gone to people those dim realms of shade,
Where rules the Past—that sovereign, single-eyed,
Whose back is on the sun!

Ah! when all these—
The joys we have recorded, and the forms
Whose very names were blessings—forms of youth,
Of childhood, and the hours we know not twice,
Which won us first, and carried us away
To strange conceits of coming happiness,
But to be thought on as delusions all,
Yet such delusions as we still must love!—
When these have parted from us—when the sky
Hath lost the charm of its ethereal blue,
And the nights lose their freshness—and the trees
No longer have a welcome shade for love—
And the moon wanes into a paler bright,
And all the poetry that stirr'd the leaves,
And all the perfume that was on the flowers—
Music upon the winds—wings in the void—
The carpeted valley's wealth of green—the dew
That morning flings on the enamell'd moss—
The hill-side, the acclivity, the grove—
Sweeter that Solitude is sleeping there!—
Are gone, as the last hope of misery:—
When the last dream of a deluded life
Hath left us to awaken—not to feel
The golden morning, but the appalling night,
When sight itself is weariness, and hope
No longer rifles from the barren path
One flower of promise!—when disease is nigh,
And every bone is racking—and the thought
Is of dry, nauseous, ineffectual drugs,
Which we must painfully swallow—but in vain—
And not a hand is nigh to quench the thirst
With one poor cup of water,—or our prayer
Is answer'd with indifferent mood, that shows
The moderate service irksome—when the eye
Strains for the closing heavens, and the fair sky
Which it is losing,—and dread images,
Meetly successive, of the sable pall,
The melancholy carriage, and the clod,
Make us to shudder with a stifling fear;—
When we have bade adieu to earthly things,
Fought through that long last struggle, still the worst,
Wrestling with self,—and winning that best boon,
Of resignation to the sovereign will,
We may no longer baffle or delude,—
And offer'd up our prayer of penitence,
Doubtful of its acceptance, yet prepared,
As well as our condition will admit,
For the last change in an unhappy life!—
Oh! then methinks 'twould still rejoice mine eyes,
Would they throw wide my casement, and permit
A last fond gaze upon the placid sky,
And all the heavenly watchers which have seen
My fair beginning, and my rising youth,
And my tall manhood. Oh! dear friend that hear'st
This chant—thy office may be soon to ask,
How shall I soothe the suffering which I see?—
With what sweet service to the friend I love,
But have not power to save, prepare his couch,
And robe him for his rest? Think of this song,
And of thy own sweet thoughts and sympathies.
Give him to see the blessed skies—the Night—
Her azure garments glowing with great eyes,
That look on him with love;—and, at the hour
Which brings thee to thy parting, it will glad
Thy heart, in that sad struggle, to behold
Their sweet serene of smiles. 'Twill bear thee back,
With all the current of thy better thoughts,
To the pure practice of thy innocent years.—
Repentant, then, of errors, evil deeds,
Imaginings of darkness, thou wilt weep
Over thy recollections; and thy tears,
The purest tribute of thy contrite heart,
Will be as a sweet prayer sent up to heaven!