The Poetical Works of David Macbeth Moir :: :: University of Virginia Library

'Twas on the evening of an August day,
A day of clouds and tempests, that I stood
Within the shade of over-arching wood,
My bosom fill'd with visions of decay;
Around were strew'd the shiver'd leaves, all wet;
The boughs above were dripping; and the sky
Threw down the shadows of despondency,—
As if all melancholy things were met
To blast this lower world. I lean'd my side
Against an oak, and sigh'd o'er human pride.

II

I thought of life, and love, and earthly bliss,
Of all we pine for, pant for, and pursue,
And found them like the mist, or matin dew,
Fading to nothingness in Time's abyss.

351

Our fathers, where are they? The moss is green
Upon the tablets that record their worth;
They have commingled with their parent earth,
And only in our dreams of yore are seen—
Our visions of the by-past, which have fled,
To leave us wandering 'mid the buried dead.

III

I thought of men, who look'd upon my face,
Breathing and blooming, breathless now and cold;
I heard their voices issuing from the mould,
Amid the scenes that bear of them no trace.
I thought of smiling children, who have sat
At evening on my knees, and press'd my hand,—
Their cherub features and their accents bland,—
Their innocence,—and their untimely fate;—
How soon their flower was cropt, and laid below
The turf, where daisies spring, and lilies blow.

IV

I thought of sunless regions, where the day
Smiles not, and all is dreariness and death;
Of weltering oceans, where the winter's breath
Beats on the emerald ice and rocky bay;
I thought me of the old times,—of the halls
Of ancient castles mouldering to the dust—
Of swords, long used in war, bedimm'd with rust,
Hanging in danky vaults, upon the walls,
Where coffin'd warriors rest, amid the night
Of darkness, never tinged by morning light.

352

V

The unshelter'd cattle low'd upon the plain;
The speckled frog was leaping 'mid the grass,
Down to the lakelet's edge, whose breast of glass
Was wrinkled only by the tardy rain;
Dim was the aspect of the sullen sky;
The night scowl'd gloomier down: I could not throw
From off my heart the weary weight of woe,
But loath'd the world, and coveted to die;
Beholding only in the earth and air
Omens of desolation and despair.