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Verses written on a Winter's Night.
Who heeds it when the lightning's forked gleamThe rifted towers of old Cilgarran strikes?
Keen from the piercing East, or when the blast
In deathful speed at midnight howls along
The drifted desart, or the frozen main,
Or to the earth on Mona's chasmy side
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To think that at this very hour, perhaps,
The self—same blast, with angry visiting
May play the russian with a vermil cheek,
Scatter at will the few and tatter'd weeds,
And dim with bitter tears the radiant eye,
Of some unnoticed daughter of Distress,
To think that she may want Compassion's sigh,
That in no single eye through the wide world,
Save mine alone, her gentle image lives.
Ye happier souls, whose winter days are none,
Who bask in sunshine of prosperity,
And feel no flint in all the paths of life,
How little know ye what affliction is!
To pine alone with sad disquietude,
To sojourn long and late with nakedness,
In torments new to watch the slow decline
Of each returning day without a hope,
And with dejection meet the merry morn;
To lose good hours, and hear with aching heart
The train of blushless Folly sweeping by,
Nor dare, though hunger knaws, to dog its heels,
Before old age comes on, and beckons death,
Wrinkles to meet, that Laughter never fills,
But mournful streams of unremitting tears;
And when the fiends of life their worst have done
To have the memory clean forgotten,
Ere the poor body rots and falls to dust.—
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