Sits melancholy, mark'd with decent pride,
As it would fly the busy taunting world,
And feed upon reflection. Sometimes, near
The foot of an old tree he takes his seat,
And with the page of legendary lore
Cheats the dull hour, while Evening's sober eye
Looks tearful as it closes.. In the dell,
By the swift brook he loiters, sad and mute,
Save when a struggling sigh, half murmur'd, steals
From his wrung bosom. To the rising moon,
His eye rais'd wistfully, expression-fraught,
He pours the cherish'd anguish of his soul,
Silent, yet eloquent: for not a sound
That might alarm the night's lone sentinel,
The dull-eyed owl, escapes his trembling lip,
Unapt in supplication. He is young,
And yet the stamp of thought so tempers youth,
That all its fires are faded. What is He?
And why, when morning sails upon the breeze,
Fanning the blue hill's summit, does he stay,
Loitering and sullen, like a truant-boy,
Beside the woodland glen; or stretch'd along
On the green slope, watch his slow-wasting form
Reflected, trembling, on the river's breast?
His garb is coarse and threadbare, and his cheek
Is prematurely faded. The check'd tear,
Dimming his dark eye's lustre, seems to say,
"This world is now, to me, a barren waste,
A desert full of weeds and wounding thorns,
And I am weary: for my journey here
Has been, tho' short, but cheerless." Is it so?
Poor Traveller! Oh tell me, tell me all—
For I, like thee, am but a fugitive,
An alien from delight, in this dark scene!
And, now I mark thy features, I behold
The cause of thy complaining. Thou art here
A persecuted exile! one, whose soul,
Unbow'd by guilt, demands no patronage
From blunted feeling, or the frozen hand
Of gilded Ostentation. Thou, poor Priest!
Art here a stranger, from thy kindred torn-
Thy kindred massacred? thy quiet home,
The rural palace of some village scant,
Shelter'd by vineyards, skirted by fair meads,
And by the music of a shallow rill
Made ever cheerful, now thou hast exchang'd
For stranger woods and valleys,
What of that!
Here, or on torrid deserts; o'er the world
Of trackless waves, or on the frozen cliffs
Of bleak Siberia, thou art not alone.
For there, on each, on all, the Deity
Is thy companion still! Then, exil'd Man!
Be cheerful as the lark that o'er yon hill,
In Nature's language, wild, yet musical,
Hails the Creator! nor thus sullenly
Repine, that, through the day, the sunny beam
Of lustrous Fortune gilds the palace roof,
While thy short path, in this wild labyrinth,
Is lost in transient shadow.
Hath not his portion of calamity?
Or who, that feels, can boast a tranquil bosom?
The fever throbbing in the tyrant's veins,
In quick, strong language, tells the daring wretch
That He is mortal, like the poorest slave
Who wears his chain, yet healthfully suspires.
The sweetest rose will wither, while the storm
Passes the mountain thistle. The bold bird,
Whose strong eye braves the ever-burning orb,
Falls like the summer fly, and has, at most,
But his allotted sojourn. Exil'd Man!
Be cheerful! Thou art not a fugitive!!
All are thy kindred-all thy brothers, here→→
The hoping-trembling creatures--of one God!
THE hinds how blest who ne'er beguil'd To quit their Hamlet's hawthorn-wild; Nor haunt the crowd, nor tempt the main For splendid care, and guilty gain!
When Morning's twilight-tinctur'd beam Strikes their low thatch with slanting gleam, They rove abroad in ether blue,
To dip the scythe in fragrant dew;
The sheaf to bind, the beech to fell,
That, nodding, shakes a craggy dell.
'Midst gloomy shades, in warbles clear,
Wild Nature's sweetest notes they hear :
On green untrodden banks they view
The hyacinth's neglected hue:
In their lone haunts, and woodland rounds,
They spy the squirrel's airy bounds:
And startle from her ashen spray,
Across the glen, the screaming jay;
Each native charm their steps explore
Of Solitude's sequester'd store.
For them the Moon, with cloudless ray, Mounts, to illume their homeward way; Their weary spirits to relieve,
The meadows incense breathe at eve.
No riot mars the simple fare
That o'er a glimm'ring hearth they share;
But when the curfew's measur'd roar
Duly, the dark'ning valleys o'er,
Has echoed from the distant town,
They wish no beds of cygnet-down,
No trophied canopies, to close
Their drooping eyes in quick repose.
Their little sons, who spread the bloom
Of health around the clay-built room,
Or through the primros'd coppice stray,
Or gambol in the new-mown hay;
Or quaintly braid the cowslip-twine,
Or drive afield the tardy kine;
Or hasten from the sultry hill,
To loiter at the shady rill;
Or climb the tall pine's gloomy crest,
To rob the raven's ancient nest.
Their humble porch with honied flowers
The curling woodbine's shade embowers;
From the small garden's thymy mound
Their bees in busy swarms resound:
Nor fell Disease, before his time,
Hastes to consume Life's golden prime;
But when their temples long have wore
The silver crown of tresses hoar,
As studious still calm peace to keep,
Beneath a flow'ry turf they sleep.
THE WANDERER'S ROUNDELAY.
EARTH does not bear another wretch
So helpless, so forlorn as I;
Yet not for me a hand will stretch,
And not for me a heart will sigh. :
The happy, in their happiness,
Will not a thought to woe incline;
The wretched feel a fierce distress,
Too much their own to think of mine;
And few shall be
The tears for me,
When I am laid beneath the tree.
There was a time when joy ran high,
And every sadder thought was weak;
Tears did not always dim this eye,
Or sorrow always stain this cheek;
And even now I often dream,
When sunk in feverish broken sleep,
Of things that were, and things that seem,
And friends that love, then wake to weep
That few shall be
The tears for me,
When I am laid beneath the tree.
Trav'llers lament the clouded skies,
The moralist the ruin'd hall,
And when th' unconscious lily dies,
How many mark and mourn its fall!-
But, ah! no dirge for me will ring,
No stone will mark my lonely spot;
I am a suff'ring, with'ring thing,
Just seen, and slighted, and forgot;
And few shall be
The tears for me,
When I am laid beneath the tree.
Yet welcome, hour of parting breath, Come, sure unerring dart-there's room For sorrow in the arms of death,
For disappointment in the tomb: What tho' the slumbers there be deep,
Tho' not by kind remembrance blest,
To slumber is to cease to weep,
To sleep forgotten is to rest;
Oh, sound shall be
The rest for me,
When I am laid beneath the tree!
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