Of conscious cheeks most beautifies the light.
There is enough of sorrowing, and quite
Enough of bitter fruits the earth doth bear-
Enough of chilly droppings from her brow-
Enough of fear and shadowy despair
To frame her cloudy prison for the soul!
TO WILLIAM LYTTLETON, ESQ.,
TOWARD THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR 1748.
How blithely passed the summer's day!
How bright was every flower!
While friends arrived in circles gay
To visit Damon's bower!
But now with silent step I range
Along some lonely shore;
And Damon's bower (alas the change!)
Is gay with friends no more.
Away to crowds and cities borne,
In quest of joy they steer;
While I, alas, am left forlorn
To weep the parting year!
O pensive Autumn, how I grieve
Thy sorrowing face to see!
When languid suns are taking leave
Of every drooping tree.
Ah! let me not with heavy eye
This dying scene survey!
Haste, Winter, haste; usurp the sky;
Complete my bower's decay!.
Ill can I bear the motley cast
Yon sickening leaves retain,
That speak at once of pleasure past,
And bode approaching pain.
Ah, home unblessed! I gaze around,
My distant scenes require,
Where, all in murky vapors drown'd,
Are hamlet, hill, and spire.
Though Thomson, sweet, descriptive bard!
Inspiring Autumn sung;
Yet how should he the months regard,
That stopp'd his flowing tongue ?
Ah, luckless months, of all the rest,
To whose hard share it fell!
For sure his was the gentlest breast
That ever sung so well.
And see, the swallows now disown
The roofs they loved before;
Each, like his tuneful genius, flown
To glad some happier shore.
The wood-nymph eyes with pale affright
The sportsman's frantic deed,
While hounds, and horns, and yells unite
To drown the Muse's reed.
Ye fields! with blighted herbage brown;
Ye skies! no longer blue;
Too much we feel from Fortune's frown,
To bear these frowns from you.
Where is the mead's unsullied green ?
The zephyr's balmy gale?
And where sweet Friendship's cordial mien
That brighten'd every vale?
What though the vine disclose her dyes,
And boast her purple store,
Not all the vineyard's rich supplies
Can soothe our sorrows more.
He! he is gone, whose moral strain
Could wit and mirth refine;
He! he is gone, whose social vein
Surpass'd the power of wine.
Fast by the streams he deign'd to praise,
In yon sequester'd grove,
To him a votive urn I raise,
To him and friendly love.
Lead me to the bowery shade,
Late with roses flaunting;
Loved resort of youth and maid,
Amorous ditties chaunting;
Hail and storm with fury shower.
Leafless mourns the rifled bower!
Say, where bides the village maid,
Late yon cot adorning?
Oft I've met her in the glade,
Fair and fresh as morning.
Swain, how short is beauty's bloom!
Seek her in the grassy tomb!
Whither roves the tuneful swain,
Who of rural pleasures,
Rose and violet, rill and plain,
Sung in dulcet measures?
Maiden, swift life's vision flies,
Death has closed the poet's eyes!
Translation of BERESFORD.
JOHAN GEORG. JACOBI, 1740-1814.
AUTUMN SCENE IN ENGLAND.
But see the fading, many-color'd woods,
Shade deepening over shade the country round
Imbrown; a crowded umbrage, dusk and dun,
Of every hue, from wan declining green
To sooty dark-these now the lonesome Muse,
Low whispering, lead into their leaf-strewn walks,
And give the season in its latest view.
Meantime, light-shadowing all, a sober calm
Fleeces unbounded ether, whose least wave
Stands tremulous, uncertain where to turn
The gentle current; while illumin'd wide,
The dewy-skirted clouds imbibe the sun,
And through their lucid vail his softened force
Shed o'er the peaceful world. Then is the time
For those whom wisdom and whom Nature charm,
To steal themselves from the degenerate crowd,
And soar above this little scene of things;
To tread low-thoughted vice beneath their feet;
To soothe the throbbing passions into peace,
And woo lone Quiet in her silent walks,
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