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Oh! if in happier worlds than this The just rejoice — to thee is giv’n To taste the calm, undying bliss Eternally in that blue heav’n, Whither, thine earnest soul would flow, While yet it linger’d here below. If Beauty, Wit, and Virtue find In heav’n a more exalted throne, To thee such glory is assign’d, And thou art matchless and alone: Who lived on earth so pure — may grace In heav’n the brightest seraph’s place.
For tho’ on earth thy beauty’s bloom Blush’d in its spring, and faded then, And, mourning o’er thine early tomb, I weep thee still, but weep in vain; Bright was the transitory gleam That cheer’d thy life’s short wav’ring dream.
All, all have past and fled, And left me lorn and lonely; All those dear hopes are dead, Remembrance wakes them only I I stand like some lone tower Of former days remaining, Within whose place of power The midnight owl is plaining; — Like oak-tree old and gray, Whose trunk with age is failing, Thro’ whose dark boughs for aye The winter winds are wailing. Thus, Memory, thus thy light O’er this worn soul is gleaming, Like some far fire at night Along the dun deep streaming.
So the gay hopes we chase with ardent zeal — Which view’d at distance to our gaze appear Sweetly embodied, tangible, and real — Elude our grasp, and melt away to air: The test of touch too delicate to bear, In unsubstantial loveliness thy glow Before our wistful eyes, too passing fair For earth to realize or man to know, Whose life is but a scene of fallacy and woe.
Above thee shall rush the hoarse gale of the mountain, Below thee shall tumble the dark breaking billow. The winds shall blow by thee, abandon’d, forsaken, The wild gales alone shall arouse thy sad strain; For where is the heart or the hand to awaken
Oh! harp of my fathers! Thy chords shall decay, One by one with the strings Shall thy notes fade away; Till the fiercest of tempests Around thee may yell, And not waken one sound Of thy desolate shell!
The fairest flower on earth must fade, The brightest hopes on earth must die: Why should we mourn that man was made To droop on earth, but dwell on high?
To cheer my old and aching eyes, T’ illume my night of wretchedness My age of anguish and distress. If I am damn’d, why find I not Some comfort in this earthly spot? But no! this world and that to come Are both to me one scene of gloom! Lest aught of solace I should see, Or lose the thoughts of what I do, Remorse, with soul-felt agony, Holds up the mirror to my view. And I was curséd from my birth, A reptile made to creep on earth, An hopeless outcast, born to die A living death eternally!
To yon vast world of endless woe, Unlighted by the cheerful day, My soul shall wing her weary way; To those dread depths where aye the same Throughout the waste of darkness, glow The glimmerings of the boundless flame. And yet I cannot here below Take my full cup of guilt, as some, And laugh away my doom to come. I would I’d been all-heartless! then I might have sinn’d like other men; But all this side the grave is fear, A wilderness so dank and drear, That never wholesome plant would spring; And all behind — I dare not think!
I know the pangs that rack me now Are trifles, to the endless hell That waits me, when my burning brow And my wrung eyes shall hope in vain For one small drop to cool the pain, The fury of that madd’ning flame
E’en so when much-loved friends depart, Their farewell rends the swelling heart; But when those friends again we see, We glow with soul-felt ecstasy, That far exceeds the tearful feeling That o’er our bosoms then was stealing. The rapture of that joyous day Bids former sorrows fade away; And Memory dwells no more on sadness When breaks that sudden morn of gladness!
THERE was a long, low, rushy dell, emboss’d With knolls of grass and clumps of copsewood green; Midway a wandering burn the valley cross’d, And streak’d with silvery line the woodland scene; High hills on either side to heaven upsprung, Y-clad with groves of undulating pine, Upon whose heads the hoary vapours hung, And far — far off the heights were seen to shine
