 | The Poetical Works of Robert Story |  |
The Young Poet Dying at a Distance from Home.
1822
[_]
[Written during a slight attack of illness. I imagined I was going to die—far from Roddam-dean, where, in my feverish excitement, I wished to be buried.]
O bury me not in yon strange spot of earth!
My rest never sweet, never tranquil can be;
But bear me away to the land of my birth,
To a scene—O how dear, and how pleasant to me!
If you saw how the sunbeams illumine the mountains,
How brightly they lie in the glen that I choose—
Could the song of its birds, and the gush of its fountains,
Through your souls the rapture and freshness diffuse,
Which in life's happy morning they shed over mine—
O! your hearts would confess it is all but divine!
My rest never sweet, never tranquil can be;
But bear me away to the land of my birth,
To a scene—O how dear, and how pleasant to me!
If you saw how the sunbeams illumine the mountains,
How brightly they lie in the glen that I choose—
Could the song of its birds, and the gush of its fountains,
Through your souls the rapture and freshness diffuse,
Which in life's happy morning they shed over mine—
O! your hearts would confess it is all but divine!
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Nay, call it not raving! A stranger I came,
And a stranger amongst you I ever have been:
When I stepped from my circle, you found me the same
Vain trifler as thousands beside in the scene.
But I lived in a circle of fancy and feeling,
A world of fair forms, a creation of bliss,
Though never to you the dear secret revealing:
My first and my latest disclosure is this,
This dying request—the last night of the dream!—
O! do not despise it, though wild it may seem.
And a stranger amongst you I ever have been:
When I stepped from my circle, you found me the same
Vain trifler as thousands beside in the scene.
But I lived in a circle of fancy and feeling,
A world of fair forms, a creation of bliss,
Though never to you the dear secret revealing:
My first and my latest disclosure is this,
This dying request—the last night of the dream!—
O! do not despise it, though wild it may seem.
I know it—the grave which to me you assign,
Is black in the shade of your dreary church-wall,
Where nettle and hemlock their rankness combine,
And the worm and sullen toad loathsomely crawl.
O! where is the primrose, so meet for adorning
The grave of a Minstrel cut off in his bloom?
O! where is the daisy, to shed in the morning
The tears it had gathered by night, for my doom?
And dearer—O! dearer than anguish can tell,
Where, where are the friends that have loved me so well?
Is black in the shade of your dreary church-wall,
Where nettle and hemlock their rankness combine,
And the worm and sullen toad loathsomely crawl.
O! where is the primrose, so meet for adorning
The grave of a Minstrel cut off in his bloom?
O! where is the daisy, to shed in the morning
The tears it had gathered by night, for my doom?
And dearer—O! dearer than anguish can tell,
Where, where are the friends that have loved me so well?
Thrice blest be those tears! they descend on my heart
Like the soft rain of Spring on a perishing flower—
And may I expire in the hope they impart,
That—yet—I shall rest by my favourite bower?
Heaven love you for that! Like the flower I have shown you,
No more to expand in the loveliest ray,
And breathing its last sigh of perfume upon you,
My spirit, all grateful, shall vanish away!
For laid in the glen, by the stream and the tree,
Deep, hallowed, and happy, my slumber shall be!
Like the soft rain of Spring on a perishing flower—
And may I expire in the hope they impart,
That—yet—I shall rest by my favourite bower?
Heaven love you for that! Like the flower I have shown you,
No more to expand in the loveliest ray,
And breathing its last sigh of perfume upon you,
My spirit, all grateful, shall vanish away!
For laid in the glen, by the stream and the tree,
Deep, hallowed, and happy, my slumber shall be!
See! one aged Mourner comes, trembling, to place
A weak, withered hand on the grave of her son—
See! Frendship, to tell how I strove in the race,
But died ere the chaplet of glory was won—
And Beauty—I plaited a wreath for that Maiden
When warm was my heart, and my fancy was high—
See! Beauty approaches with summer-flowers laden,
And strews them when nought but the blackbird is nigh!
Thus, thus shall I rest, with a charm on my name,
In the shower-mingled sunshine of Love and of Fame!
A weak, withered hand on the grave of her son—
See! Frendship, to tell how I strove in the race,
But died ere the chaplet of glory was won—
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When warm was my heart, and my fancy was high—
See! Beauty approaches with summer-flowers laden,
And strews them when nought but the blackbird is nigh!
Thus, thus shall I rest, with a charm on my name,
In the shower-mingled sunshine of Love and of Fame!
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