But is Her magic only felt below? Say, thro' what brighter realms she bids it flow; She yields delight but faintly imag'd here: But, as a landscape meets the eye of day, Each scene of bliss revealed, since chaos fled, To distant worlds that undiscovered shine; Full on her tablet flings its living rays, And all, combined, with blest effulgence blaze. There thy bright train, immortal Friendship, soar; No more to part, to mingle tears no more! So there the soul, released from human strife, Its lights and shades, its sunshine and its showers; As at a dream that charmed her vacant hours! There may these gentle guests delight to dwell, Oh thou! with whom my heart was wont to share From Reason's dawn each pleasure and each care; With whom, alas! I fondly hoped to know If thy blest nature now unites above An angel's pity with a brother's love, Still o'er my life preserve thy mild controul, Grant me thy peace and purity of mind, Devout yet cheerful, active yet resign'd; Grant me, like thee, whose heart knew no disguise, To meet the changes Time and Chance present, When thy last breath, ere Nature sunk to rest, Hail, MEMORY, hail! in thy exhaustless mine From age to age unnumbered treasures shine! Thought and her shadowy brood thy call obey, And Place and Time are subject to thy sway! Thy pleasures most we feel, when most alone; If but a fleeting cloud obscure the sky; But can the wiles of Art, the grasp of Power, NOTES ON THE FIRST PART. NOTE a. Page 12, line 11. Up springs, at every step, to claim a tear, "The I CAME to the place of my birth, and cried, friends of my Youth, where are they?"-And an echo answered, "Where are they?" From an Arabic MS. NOTE b. P. 16, l. 1. Awake but one, and lo, what myriads rise! When a traveller, who was surveying the ruins of Rome, expressed a desire to possess some relic of its antient grandeur, Poussin, who attended him, stooped down, and, gathering up a handful of earth shining with small grains of porphyry, "Take this home," said he, "for your cabinet; and say boldly, Questa è Roma Antica." NOTE C. P. 17, 1. 8. The church-yard yews round which his fathers sleep; Every man, like Gulliver in Lilliput, is fastened to some spot of earth, by the thousand small threads which habit and association are continually stealing over him. Of these, perhaps, one of the strongest is here alluded to. When the Canadian Indians were once solicited to emigrate, "What!" they replied, "shall we say to the bones of our fathers, Arise, and go with us into a foreigu land?" |