Others, advent'rous, walk abroad and meet
Returning parties pacing through the street;
When various voices, in the dying day,
Hum in our walks, and greet us in our way;
When tavern-lights flit on from room to room,
And guide the tippling sailor staggering home :
There, as we pass, the jingling bells betray
How business rises with the closing day :
Now walking silent by the river's side,
The ear perceives the rippling of the tide;
Or measured cadence of the lads who tow
Some enter'd hoy, to fix her in her row;
Or hollow sound, which from the parish bell
To some departed spirit bids farewell!
Yes! there are real mourners: I have seen
A fair, sad girl, mild, suffering, and serene;
Attention (through the day) her duties claim'd
And to be useful as resign'd she aim'd:
Neatly she dress'd, nor vainly seem'd t' expec
Pity for grief, or pardon for neglect;
But when her wearied parents sunk to sleep,
She sought her place to meditate and weep:
Then to her mind was all the past display'd,
That faithful memory brings to sorrow's aid :
For then she thought on one regretted youth,
Her tender trust, and his unquestion'd truth;
In ev'ry place she wander'd, where they'd been,
And sadly sacred held the parting scene:
Where last for sea he took his leave that place
With double interest would she nightly trace;
For long the courtship was, and he would say,
Each time he sail'd, "This once, and then the day :”
Yet prudence tarried, but when last he went,
He drew from pitying love a full consent.
Happy he sail'd, and great the care she took,
That he should softly sleep and smartly look;
White was his better linen, and his check
Was made more trim than any on the deck;
And every comfort men at sea can know
Was hers to buy, to måke, and to bestow:
For he to Greenland sail'd, and much she told
How he should guard against the climate's cold;
Yet saw no danger; dangers he'd withstood,
Nor could she trace the fever in his blood:
His messmates smiled at flushings in his cheek,
And he too smiled, but seldom would he speak ;
For now he found the danger, felt the pain,
With grievous symptoms he could not explain;
Hope was awaken'd as for home he sail'd,
But quickly sank, and never more prevail'd.
He call'd his friend, and prefaced with a sigh
A lover's message:
"Thomas, I must die:
Would I could see my Sally, and could rest
My throbbing temples on her faithful breast,
And gazing go! if not, this trife take,
And say, till death I wore it for her sake;
Yes! I must die: blow on, sweet breeze, blow on!
Give me one look before my life be gone!
Oh! give me that, and let me not despair,
One last, fond look-and now repeat the prayer."
He had his wish, had more: I will not paint
The lovers' meeting: she beheld him faint :
With tender fears, she took a nearer view,
Her terrors doubling as her hopes withdrew;
He tried to smile, and, half succeeding, said,
66 Yes, I must die ;" and hope for ever fled.
Still long she nursed him: tender thoughts meantime
Were interchanged, and hopes and views sublime.
To her he came to die, and every day
She took some portion of the dread away;
With him she pray'd, to him his Bible read,
Sooth'd the faint heart, and held the aching head:
She came with smiles the hour of pain to cheer;
Apart she sigh'd; alone she shed the tear;
Then, as if breaking from a cloud, she gave
Fresh light, and gilt the prospect of the grave.
One day he lighter seem'd, and they forgot
The care, the dread, the anguish of their lot;
They spoke with cheerfulness, and seem'd to think,
Yet said not so-" Perhaps he will not sink :"
A sudden brightness in his look appear'd,
A sudden vigour in his voice was heard;
She had been reading in the Book of Prayer,
And led him forth, and placed him in his chair;
Lively he seem'd, and spoke of all he knew,
The friendly many, and the favourite few;
Nor one that day did he to mind recall
But she has treasured, and she loves them all;
When in her way she meets them, they appear
Peculiar people: death has made them dear.
He named his friend, but then his hand she press'd,
And fondly whisper'd, "Thou must go to rest;"
I go," he said; but, as he spoke, she found
His hand more cold, and fluttering was the sound!
Then gazed affrighted; but she caught a last,
A dying look of love—and all was past!
She placed a decent stone his grave above,
Neatly engraved-an offering of her love;
For that she wrought, for that forsook her bed,
Awake alike to duty and the dead;
She would have grieved had friends presumed to
The least assistance-'twas her proper care. [spare
Here will she come, and on the grave will sit,
Folding her arms in long, abstracted fit;
But if observer pass, will take her round,
And careless seem, for she would not be found;
Then go again, and thus her hour employ,
While visions please her, and while woes destroy.
THE HON. WILLIAM SPENCER. 1770-1837.
Too late I've stay'd-forgive the crime-
Unheeded flew the hours:
How noiseless falls the foot of Time
That only treads on flowers!
And who, with clear account, remarks
The ebbings of his glass,
When all its sands are diamond sparks,
That dazzle as they pass?
And who to sober measurement
Time's happy swiftness brings,
When birds of paradise have lent
Their plumage to his wings?
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains
My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,
Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains
One minute past, and Lethe-ward had sunk.
"Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,
But being too happy in thy happiness,
That thou, light-wing'd Dryad of the trees,
In some melodious plot
Of beechen green, and shadows numberless,
Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
Oh for a draught of vintage, that hath been
Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,
Tasting of Flora and the country green,
Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!
Oh for a beaker full of the warm South,
Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,
With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,
And purple-stain'd mouth;
That I might drink, and leave the world unseen, And with thee fade away into the forest dim: Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget
What thou among the leaves hast never known, The weariness, the fever, and the fret
Here, where men sit and hear each other groan; Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs, Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;
Where but to think is to be full of sorrow
And leaden-eyed despairs,
Where beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,
Or new love pine at them beyond to-morrow.
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards, But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards.
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy
I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,
Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,
But, in embalm'd darkness, guess each sweet
Wherewith the seasonable month endows
The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;
White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine ;
Fast-fading violets cover'd up in leaves;
And mid-May's eldest child,
The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,
The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.
|