Summer, my youth, succeeded soon,
My sun ascended high,
And Pleasure held the reins till noon,
But Grief drove down the sky.
Like Autumn, rich in ripening corn,
Came Manhood's sober reign,
My harvest-moon scarce filled her horn
When she began to wane.
Then followed Age, infirm Old Age,
The winter of my year,
When shall I fall before his rage,
To rise beyond the sphere!
I long to cast the chains away
That bind me down to earth;
To burst these dungeon walls of clay,
And start to second birth.
Life lies in embryo,-never free
Till nature yields her breath,
Till Time becomes Eternity,
And man is born in death!
FAIR daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon:
Until the hastening day
Has run
But to the even song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along!
We have short time to stay as you;
We have as short a spring,
As quick a growth to meet decay
As you or any thing:
As your hours do, and dry
Away
Like to the summer's rain,
Or as the pearls of morning dew,
Ne'er to be found again.
PRIVATE LIFE.
A Moral Rhapsody.
BLESS'D groves! bless'd mansion! though your humble gate
No Doric columns crowd with idle state,
No bustos, statues, temples, arcs surprise,
Nor gilded roofs fatigue the gazer's eyes;
Here Nature reigns, with modest grace array'd,
By Art, her subject, served and not betray'd:
Here all the mild domestic Joys reside,
And rural Elegance unspoil'd by Pride,
Unsullied Honour, Peace with eye serene,
Friendship's warm glow, and Candour's open mien;
Benevolence stands smiling at the door,
The friend to welcome, and to feed the poor.
Imperial piles and glittering domes that rise,
And back reflect their glories to the skies,
Vain Grandeur's tinsel'd train, the gorgeous glare
Of crowns and thrones and banners waved in air
May give the dazzled eye a short delight,
But tire at length the satiated sight,
Which views with unabated pleasure still
The flower-enamel'd mead and rambling rill,
The sloping vale, which rocky mountains bound,
And verdant hills with waving woods imbrown'd,
The straw-built cottage smoking in the grove,
And grazing herds that o'er the champaign rove,
Rich harvests glowing o'er the golden fields,
And all the simple charms that Nature yields.
Hail, grass-crown'd Genius of the silvan scene,
Shrined in thy lonely bower of flowering green!
Hail, Sire of Sages, Heroes, Bards of old,
Who in thy woods (while baser eras roll'd)
Preserved the bright Saturnian age of gold!
Methinks I see in solemn order stand
Dictators, consuls, kings, an awful band!
Whose virtues, nursed beneath the lowly shed,
By thee to mighty feats of fame were bred;
To speak, to dare in Freedom's sacred cause—
To form the rising state-to dictate laws
To wild ambition, and profuse of blood
Pour in their country's right the generous flood.
Hence Numa humanized ferocious hearts,
And soothed a savage brood to peaceful arts;
Hence honest Curius tamed a tyrant's pride,
And hence Fabricius lived and Decius died.
What though no longer in thy rural school
Statesmen and heroes learn to fight or rule;
Still to thy solitary shades belong
The sage's wisdom and the poet's song.
O, bless'd the man whom meditation leads To these sequester'd groves and silent meads!
Here while he bends at Wisdom's silvan shrine,
In solemn musings rapt, with drops divine
From her ethereal well she clears away
The mists that cloud his intellectual ray,
Till Truth, fair-dawning with increasing light,
Pours her full glories on the gladden'd sight.
Touch'd by her energy, his curious mind
Wanders through fields of science unconfined;
Now boldly soars among the stars to stray,
While Newton's mighty genius points the way:
Through Nature's dread immense he darts his eyes,
And sees unnumber'd wonders round him rise;
What well proportion'd powers the planets roll;
How various parts compose one beauteous whole;
While in her centre throned, bless'd Harmony
Tunes her immortal strings and charms them to
The Sun himself, intolerably bright, [agree.
Dims the weak eye with mere excess of light;
While in his Sister's softer looks express'd
His image we admire in gentler glories dress'd.
Thus though no mortal eye the God survey,
Veiled in the blaze of his essential day,
Diffused o'er Nature's various form we find
The fair reflection of her Maker's mind,
And in his works the Parent Beauty trace,
Majestic grandeur with enchanting grace.
While rapt he views the vast sublime design,
On his own mind he marks the plan divine;
He fain would imitate the Sovereign Fair,
And emulate the eternal order there,
Bids Reason take her sceptre and her sway,
And bend each rebel passion to obey;
Bids all his powers within their orbits roll,
And form the harmonious music of the soul,
Where sweetly blended meet in mode and time
The just, the good, the graceful, and sublime:
Enthusiastic heaves his ardent breast,
And shares and tastes the pleasures of the bless'd.
For not the Bard, who on the ecstatic lyre,
While his warm fancy flames ethereal fire,
Warbles the soft or sounds the lofty lay,
And lifts or swells or melts the soul away;
Not the gay tints that arch the showery bow,
Blaze in the gem, or in the floweret glow,
Or tinge Aurora's dewy cheek with red,
Or dye the blushes of the bridal maid,
Or nobly ranged by Raphael's hand divine
Give form and spirit to some bold design,
Bid each impassion'd figure breathe and move,
Or frown in rage, or languish into love;
Not mother Nature, nor her daughter Art
Such joys to fancy or to sense impart
As to the Soul's quick eye and ear refined
The nobler grace and music of the mind.
Thus half-inspired his warm ideas rise,
Soar o'er the azure vault and gain the skies;
Faith opens to his view her realms on high,
And Heaven's own splendours burst upon his eye;
Thence, like a seraph seated on his sphere,
He marks the course of human motions here,
Treats with a just disdain the toys of state,
And looks with pity on the proud and great;
He feels, like Ammon's son, his mighty mind
Within this globe's too narrow verge confined,
For other worlds with nobler ardour sighs,
For realms and thrones eternal in the skies.
Such is the path that saints and sages trod,
The path to reason and the path to God.
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