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Nugae Canorae

Poems by Charles Lloyd ... Third Edition, with Additions

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117

LINES,

Written in consequence of hearing of a young Man that had voluntarily starved himself to death on Skiddaw, and who was found after his decease in a bed of turf, piled with his own hands, previous to that event.

29th June, 1808.
What didst thou feel, thou poor unhappy youth,
Ere on that sod thou laid'st thee down to rest?
Ah, little know the children of this world
What some are born to suffer! Did some dread
And perilous thought possess thy blasted mind?
Did fierce remorse assail thee? Wert thou torn
With fatal, incommunicable thoughts?
I pity thee, poor stranger! In a world
Fearful, a world of nameless phantoms framed,
Was thy abode!—Thou sawest not with eyes,
Thou heardest not with ears, nor felt'st with touch,
Like eyes, and ears, and touch of other men.
Thine was a cruel insulation, thine

118

A malady beyond the reach of love,
Beyond the reach of melting sympathy.
Oh, when Heaven wills that the external world
And the internal world should be at war;
When Heaven suffers that sensation's chords
Shall all be out of tune; when every sense
At variance with the other, like a wrench'd
And shattered instrument of music, yields
A harsh report of discontinuous pangs,
As infinite in number as in fear,
To the universal influences of life,
What does not man endure!—Yet man e'en then
Perchance has somewhat of the flush of health,
Has strength of muscle, and the swelling limb,
So he is pitied not! Though if he smile,
His smile like wandering spectre of the night,
Apparent in some beauteous maiden's shape,
Fills with more deadly chill, because it wears
The form of joy in circumstance of woe!—
Though if he speak, the incongruous attempt
Betrays the treachery of his voiceless thought!
His words are like the sound of crazy bells,
Swinging in open air, no longer pealed
By hands accordant; but the tempest wakes
Or sullen breeze, when nightly visitant,

119

Strange discord from their hoarse and iron tongues!
His accents, unaccountably impelled,
Or rush with fearful spontaneity,
Or languidly eke out their dying tones;
And sentences half finished, broken words,
Abrupt transitions, discontinuous thought,
Of intellectual alienation tell.
Say, fared it so with thee? Then be at peace!
And may the God the fortitude who gave
To bear thy silent voluntary pangs,
Receive thee in the arms of pitying love.