THE day is gone to rest-encroaching Night
Breathes from his gloomy caverns, drear and chill,
His noisome vapours-and the stars are bright,
And Cynthia's crescent tips the giant hill;
Who, at such hour, when Nature all is still,
Would curb the license of his active thought,
Or on the downy couch his limbs compose,
Or barter his excursive mind for aught
That in Golconda's mines resplendent glows,
Or down the eddying tide of fashion's vortex flows.
There is a majesty in Night, that awes
The soul, and checks the wildness of desire;
That round the heart a curtained stillness draws,
And floods the bosom with poetic fire:
Bids the excursive mind expand, aspire
To things disdaining earth, allied to Heaven,
Bursting the precincts of coercive fate,
By Fancy's soaring powers resistless driven,
Raising aloft man's low, degrading state,
From passion, slander, pride, revenge, and deadly hate.
Even such a scene does now my soul possess,
As upward turned to heaven my youthful eye:
There, worlds on worlds the Power Supreme confess,
Clustering with lights the unpillared canopy:
Whilst gazing thus on Night's instructive sky,
I search my bosom, commune, muse alone,
Contrast with it my life's contracted span,
What lingers yet. And how the past has flown!
Revere the Almighty's irreversive plan,
And think how abject, poor, forlorn, and impotent is man!
Yet, as the spring, which now to life restores
Myriads of beings, and dull Torpor warms,
Through nature's veins a fuller current pours,
And winter's icy fangs of power disarms,
Whilst buds renascent put forth all their charms—
Man's soul, pure essence! shall its coil disdain
When o'er the clay Death shall his mantle fling,
And uncontrolled its fields of azure gain,
Where higher cares superior pleasures bring,
And joys supernal bloom in heaven's unfading spring.
Even in these thoughts, a place can Phylé find,
Who in my breast usurps dominion sole,
From highest views divides my youthful mind
With roseate, sweet, beloved, and mild control.
Oh! as the faithful magnet seeks the pole,
She turns to me---and could her swain bestow
The bliss his love-charmed fancy would impart,
For her the cup of life should sparkling flow,
From care removed---secure from sorrow's dart,
Love, with Elysian sweets, should sway unchanged
her heart.
April 10th, 1819.
M. Yks.
Supposed to be Written by a Person, on returning (after a long absence) to his Native Place.
DELIGHTFUL village! Scene of all the joys,
Which the glad moments of my childhood told;
Where, far from care and busy cities' noise,
My youthful days in calm contentment roll'd;
Once more I view thy daisy-broidered plain,
Crowned by the woody tuft, and thorny brake;
The verdant meadow path, and shady lane,
Where we our evening's walk were wont to take.
'Twas here, beneath a parent's fostering eye,
The tear of pity learnt, unchecked, to flow,
My infant breast, to heave compassion's sigh,
At the sad story of another's woe.
At foot of yonder gently-swelling hill,
O'er whose delightful side the lambkins bound,
There flows a melancholy bubbling rill,
That spreads a rich fertility around.
There 'twas in infancy I loved to play,
As, shaded from the mid-day's sultry beam,
In joyous sport I chased the hours away.
And launched my little shallop in the stream.
There too, when infant sports had ceased to please,
And childhood gave the palm to riper days,
On the warm, mossy bank, reclined at ease,
I tuned to sylvan lyre my plaintive lays.
O blissful days! alas! for ever fled--
Lured by ambition's specious baits astray, I left one morn, at dawn, my humble bed, And wandered from my native fields away. Enthusiastic ardour fired my brain,
With eager haste I sought the tented field ;--I longed to tread Bellona's bloody plain,
And, 'gainst her foes, my country's sword to wield. 'But ah! In vain I left my father's cot,
O'er distant fields and provinces to roam; Chagrin and sorrow were my only lot,
And oft I cast a mournful thought on home.
Full many a tear in secret did I shed,
Full many a sigh my bursting bosom heaved,
When couched upon the soldier's rugged bed,
To think that I ambition's tale believed.
O blessed hour! I cried, when gentle peace,
Bid the tired soldier sheath his bloody brand:
Then bade I all my griefs and sorrows cease,
And hastened to review my native land.
Hither I came, and to the well known place,
In joyous hope and fond emotion hied;
Thinking to feel my father's warm embrace,
And hear him bless the truant, ere he died.
But ah! His eyes are closed, their lustre gone!
For ever mute the accents of his tongue!
'Tis cold---that face, where fond affection stone,
On whose love-beaming look my comfort hung.
No son shed o'er thy grave affection's tear,
On no kind friend thy dying head reposed;
False, venal mourners decked thy humble bier,
By venal mourners were thy eyelids closed.
Forsaken by his only, darling boy,
His aged heart could not endure the stroke;
But stripped of every sublunary joy,
A prey to melancholy dire---it broke!
'Twas from the mouth of youder hollow dell, Through whose dark shade the rippling waters play,
I bade my native cot a sad farewell,
And hastened forward on my luckless way.
As then, the chimes still merrily resound,
And call the peasant to the harvest field;
The same refreshing verdure clothes the ground,
The jasmines still their grateful fragrance yield.
There, on the green, the modest cottage stands,
The same, as when I breathed my parting sigh;
Save that the woodbine planted by my hands,
Ilas reared its lovely branches far on high.
Still, o'er yon tall cascade the waters roar,
Still, on yon ivied roof, the red-breast sings;
Still, o'er yon stream, the swallow loves to soar,
And in its glassy wave to wet his wings.
All is the same---save in this wretched heart,
Which once was free from every grief and care;
But now, a prey to agonizing smart,
No ray of joy shall ever enter there.
To yonder bench beside the cottage door,
When 'neath the wave had sunk the glorious sun,
My daily task, and school employment o'er,
Joyful to meet my father, would I run.
There would he sit, and into my young mind
Instil the principles of sacred truth;
And with his arm upon my neck reclined,
Teach precepts for the guidance of my youth. And then, with lifted hands and streaming eyes, Would silently breathe forth his ardent prayers, That his loved son to honoured rank might rise, And prove a blessing to his hoary hairs.
'Neath you green sod thy mortal body lies,
There will I go and ease my throbbing breast;
Whilst thy dear soul, ascended to the skies,
Is gone to seck a long, eternal rest.
There, daily shall affection's debt be paid,
And memory recal thy tender love;
Till through the last great enemy's dark shade,
I fly to join thee in the realms above.
LINES WRITTEN BY MOON-LIGHT.
HERE, by the moon's soft, silvery light,
I sit, a lonely, moody wight,
Musing on long departed days,
I turn a sad, and fearful gaze
On what may be; what future fate
Shall on my pilgrimage await,
While in this fabric I sojourn.
If right I judge, to mourn, to mourn,
Will be my lot, for joys estranged,
For tenderest pleasures sadly changed;
For blighted hopes, vain or deceived,
For thoughts too readily believed.
Now while I view thy lovely ray,
Night's Regent!-its unholy sway,
Dark Melancholy cheerless holds,
And to my startled mind unfolds
Dim scenes of misery severe,
That check, with their excess, the tear.
Yet once my youthful thoughts were bright,
As, lovely Moon, thy splendid light;
And ah, as transient! soon, full soon,
Shall be obscured thy beams, O Moon!.
E'en so my fortune. Once I thought
My life with every pleasure fraught-
Not empty pleasures, (causeless joy!)
That in enjoyment sickening cloy,
'But such as should unchanged remain,
Secured by Love's delightful reign.
Who has not marked the morning rise,
With genial warmth, and glowing skies,
With cheerful sun, and splendors gay...
Nor seen those lovely charms decay!
For, ere day's middle course be run,
The skies are dark, the warmth is gone;
And gathering tempests angry growl,
And rising winds portentous howl;
And darkness comes with thicker shades,
Till one wild storm the whole pervades.
March 12, 1819.
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