A casket gemless! yet for thee
Pity suspends the tender wail,
For Reason shall a moral see,
While Memory paints the simple tale.
Yes, it shall paint thy hapless form,
Clad decent in its russet weed;
Happy in aimless wandering's charm,
And pleased thy father's flock to feed.
With vacant, reckless smile thou borest,
Patient, the scoffer's cruel jest;
With unfix'd gaze could pass it o'er,
And turn it pointless from thy breast.
Though language was forbid to trace
The' unform'd chaos of thy mind,
And thy rude sound no ear could guess,
But through parental instinct kind,
Yet close to every human form
Clings imitation, mystic power!
And thou wert fond and proud to own
The school-time's regulated hour,
And o'er the mutilated page
Mutter the mimic lesson's tone;
And, ere the schoolboy's task was said,
Brought ever and anon thine own;
And many a truant boy would seek,
And drag reluctant to his place;
And oft the master's solemn rule
Would mock with grave and apt grimace.
And every guileless heart would love
A nature so estranged from wrong,
And every infant would protect
Thee from the passing traveller's tongue.
Thy primal joy was still to be
Where holy congregations bow;
Rapt in wild transport when they sung,
And when they pray'd, would bend thee low. Oh Nature, wheresoe'er thou art,
Some latent worship still is there;
Blush, ye whose form, without a heart,
The Idiot's plea can never share.
Poor guileless thing! Thee eighteen years
Parental cares had rear'd alone;
Then, lest thou e'er shouldst want their care,
Heaven took thee spotless to its own.
Full many a watching eye of love
Thy sickness and thy death did cheer,
Though Reason weeps not, she allows
The instinct of a parent's tear.
Poor guileless thing! forgot by men,
The hillock's all remains of thee;
'Tis all thou art to mortal ken,
But Faith beyond the grave can see.
For what a burst of mind shall glow
When, disencumber'd of this clod,
Thou, who on earth couldst nothing know,
Shalt rise to comprehend thy God!
Oh! could thy spirit teach us now
Full many a truth the gay might learn; The value of a blameless life
Full many a sinner might discern.
Yes, they might learn who waste their time
What it must be to know no sin;
They who pollute the soul's sweet prime,
What to be spotless pure within.
Go! then, and seek her humble grave,
All ye who sport in folly's ray,
And, as the gale the grass shall wave,
List to a voice that seems to say-
"Tis not the measure of thy powers
To which the' eternal meed is given;
"Tis wasted or improved hours
That forfeit or secure thy heaven !'
O THAMES with crystal face,
Whose waters visit as they stray
The hamlets where the shepherds play,
And seats that princes grace;
O Thames, still let me by thy stream
Waste life away in pleasing dream.
Not where thy wave beside
The city rears her turrets proud,
And the mad tumult of the crowd
Resounds along thy tide,
O! let not there my youth pursue
False joys that sober age will rue.
Nor where thy bank along
Some princely villa crowns the plain,
Whose gilded halls the glittering train
Of courtly flatterers throng,
O, see me not there by the wave,
Of show and idle state the slave.
But where thy silver springs
Through nameless vales their smooth way take, Ere yet the shepherd they forsake,
To seek the seats of kings;
O Thames, there let me rear my bower,
And deck it round with many a flower.
There like thy noiseless tide,
Which steals so softly through the vale
That on the bank the poplar pale
Hears not the current glide,
So noiseless let my secret day
Among the green woods slide away.
And as thy waters flow,
Not to annoy the simple swain,
His cot, his fold, or ripening grain,
But blessings to bestow,
So may I mark my silent way,
By scattering blessings where I stray.
Smoothly the years shall pass,
Nor shall I know that envious Time
Has stolen away my youthful prime,
Till taught by thy clear glass;
Till in thy crystal wave I trace
The roses withering on my face.
Along thy margent green, The gentle Muses oft at morn, In garb by rural virgin worn,
Shall round my bower be seen;
Then shall they place me in their ranks,
And lead me to their favourite banks.
Let not the Muses crown
With laurel wreath my tender head,
Nor round my humble temples spread
The palm that yields renown;
But round my brow a garland twine
Of roses by thy stream that shine.
Nor let the Muses bring
To grace my hand the sounding shell,
Nor bid me with loud measures swell
The trumpet by thy spring;
But let them bear to me at morn
The reed that on thy bank is born.
Softly the reed shall blow,
And thy clear springs shall love the strain, And waft it to the simple swain
Who haunts the vales below;
But O! beyond the shepherd's bounds, O! waft not, Thames, its artless sounds.
Oft by thy watery glass,
With sober looks and pensive eye,
Beneath the poplars will I lie,
Along the smooth green grass,
Wrapt in soft thought and musing deep,
While on thy waves my eye I keep.
There if I chance to mark
The downward sky in thy clear stream,
Now bright with many a golden gleam,
With sudden shades now dark,
O! life, then will I say, and sigh,
Thy face is likest to that sky.
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