Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets Part 129

What have I done--to follow you?

I leave a father torn with fears; I leave a mother bathed in tears; A brother, girding on his sword, Against my life, against my lord.

8 Now, without father, mother, friend, On thee my future days depend; Wilt thou, for ever true to love, A father, mother, brother, prove?

O Henry!----to thy arms I fall, My friend! my husband! and my all!

Alas! what hazards may I run?

Shouldst thou forsake me--I'm undone.

9 _Hen_. My Harriet, dissipate thy fears, And let a husband wipe thy tears; For ever joined our fates combine, And I am yours, and you are mine.

The fires the firmament that rend, On this devoted head descend, If e'er in thought from thee I rove, Or love thee less than now I love!

10 Although our fathers have been foes, From hatred stronger love arose; From adverse briars that threatening stood, And threw a horror o'er the wood, Two lovely roses met on high, Transplanted to a better sky; And, grafted in one stock, they grow.

In union spring, in beauty blow.

11 _Har_. My heart believes my love; but still My boding mind presages ill: For luckless ever was our love, Dark as the sky that hung above.

While we embraced, we shook with fears, And with our kisses mingled tears; We met with murmurs and with sighs, And parted still with watery eyes.

12 An unforeseen and fatal hand Crossed all the measures love had planned; Intrusion marred the tender hour, A demon started in the bower; If, like the past, the future run, And my dark day is but begun, What clouds may hang above my head?

What tears may I have yet to shed?

13 _Hen_. Oh, do not wound that gentle breast, Nor sink, with fancied ills oppressed; For softness, sweetness, all, thou art, And love is virtue in thy heart.

That bosom ne'er shall heave again But to the poet's tender strain; And never more these eyes o'erflow But for a hapless lover's woe.

14 Long on the ocean tempest-tossed, At last we gain the happy coast; And safe recount upon the sh.o.r.e Our sufferings past, and dangers o'er: Past scenes, the woes we wept erewhile, Will make our future minutes smile: When sudden joy from sorrow springs, How the heart thrills through all its strings!

15 _Har_. My father's castle springs to sight; Ye towers that gave me to the light!

O hills! O vales! where I have played; Ye woods, that wrap me in your shade!

O scenes I've often wandered o'er!

O scenes I shall behold no more!

I take a long, last, lingering view: Adieu! my native land, adieu!

16 O father, mother, brother dear!

O names still uttered with a tear!

Upon whose knees I've sat and smiled, Whose griefs my blandishments beguiled; Whom I forsake in sorrows old, Whom I shall never more behold!

Farewell, my friends, a long farewell, Till time shall toll the funeral knell.

17 _Hen_. Thy friends, thy father's house resign; My friends, my house, my all is thine: Awake, arise, my wedded wife, To higher thoughts, and happier life!

For thee the marriage feast is spread, For thee the virgins deck the bed; The star of Venus s.h.i.+nes above, And all thy future life is love.

18 They rise, the dear domestic hours!

The May of love unfolds her flowers; Youth, beauty, pleasure spread the feast, And friends.h.i.+p sits a constant guest; In cheerful peace the morn ascends, In wine and love the evening ends; At distance grandeur sheds a ray, To gild the evening of our day.

19 Connubial love has dearer names, And finer ties, and sweeter claims, Than e'er unwedded hearts can feel, Than wedded hearts can e'er reveal; Pure as the charities above, Rise the sweet sympathies of love; And closer cords than those of life Unite the husband to the wife.

20 Like cherubs new come from the skies, Henries and Harriets round us rise; And playing wanton in the hall, With accent sweet their parents call; To your fair images I run, You clasp the husband in the son; Oh, how the mother's heart will bound!

Oh, how the father's joy be crowned!

WRITTEN IN A VISIT TO THE COUNTRY IN AUTUMN.

1 'Tis past! no more the Summer blooms!

Ascending in the rear, Behold congenial Autumn comes, The Sabbath of the year!

What time thy holy whispers breathe, The pensive evening shade beneath, And twilight consecrates the floods; While nature strips her garment gay, And wears the vesture of decay, Oh, let me wander through the sounding woods!

2 Ah! well-known streams!--ah! wonted groves, Still pictured in my mind!

Oh! sacred scene of youthful loves, Whose image lives behind!

While sad I ponder on the past, The joys that must no longer last; The wild-flower strown on Summer's bier The dying music of the grove, And the last elegies of love, Dissolve the soul, and draw the tender tear!

3 Alas! the hospitable hall, Where youth and friends.h.i.+p played, Wide to the winds a ruined wall Projects a death-like shade!

The charm is vanished from the vales; No voice with virgin-whisper hails A stranger to his native bowers: No more Arcadian mountains bloom, Nor Enna valleys breathe perfume; The fancied Eden fades with all its flowers!

4 Companions of the youthful scene, Endeared from earliest days!

With whom I sported on the green, Or roved the woodland maze!

Long exiled from your native clime, Or by the thunder-stroke of time s.n.a.t.c.hed to the shadows of despair; I hear your voices in the wind, Your forms in every walk I find; I stretch my arms: ye vanish into air!

5 My steps, when innocent and young, These fairy paths pursued; And wandering o'er the wild, I sung My fancies to the wood.

I mourned the linnet-lover's fate, Or turtle from her murdered mate, Condemned the widowed hours to wail: Or while the mournful vision rose, I sought to weep for imaged woes, Nor real life believed a tragic tale!

6 Alas! misfortune's cloud unkind May summer soon o'ercast!

And cruel fate's untimely wind All human beauty blast!

The wrath of nature smites our bowers, And promised fruits and cherished flowers, The hopes of life in embryo sweeps; Pale o'er the ruins of his prime, And desolate before his time, In silence sad the mourner walks and weeps!

7 Relentless power! whose fated stroke O'er wretched man prevails!

Ha! love's eternal chain is broke, And friends.h.i.+p's covenant fails!

Upbraiding forms! a moment's ease-- O memory! how shall I appease The bleeding shade, the unlaid ghost?

What charm can bind the gus.h.i.+ng eye, What voice console the incessant sigh, And everlasting longings for the lost?

8 Yet not unwelcome waves the wood That hides me in its gloom, While lost in melancholy mood I muse upon the tomb.

Their chequered leaves the branches shed; Whirling in eddies o'er my head, They sadly sigh that Winter's near: The warning voice I hear behind, That shakes the wood without a wind, And solemn sounds the death-bell of the year.

9 Nor will I court Lethean streams, The sorrowing sense to steep; Nor drink oblivion of the themes On which I love to weep.

Belated oft by fabled rill, While nightly o'er the hallowed hill Aerial music seems to mourn; I'll listen Autumn's closing strain; Then woo the walks of youth again, And pour my sorrows o'er the untimely urn!

COMPLAINT OF NATURE.

1 Few are thy days and full of woe, O man of woman born!

Thy doom is written, dust thou art, And shalt to dust return.

2 Determined are the days that fly Successive o'er thy head; The numbered hour is on the wing That lays thee with the dead.

3 Alas! the little day of life Is shorter than a span; Yet black with thousand hidden ills To miserable man.

4 Gay is thy morning, flattering hope Thy sprightly step attends; But soon the tempest howls behind, And the dark night descends.

5 Before its splendid hour the cloud Comes o'er the beam of light; A pilgrim in a weary land, Man tarries but a night.

6 Behold, sad emblem of thy state!

The flowers that paint the field; Or trees that crown the mountain's brow, And boughs and blossoms yield.