SAD IS OUR YOUTH, FOR IT IS EVER Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,
"Whence does she come?" they ask of me; "Who is her master, and what her name?" And they smile upon me pityingly
When my answer is ever and ever the same.
Bright visions of glory that vanished too soon; Day-dreams, that departed ere manhood's noon; Attachments by fate or falsehood reft; Companions of early days lost or left; And my native land, whose magical name Thrills to the heart like electric flame;
The home of my childhood; the haunts of my prime;
O, mine was a vessel of strength and truth, Her sails were white as a young lamb's fleece, She sailed long since from the port of Youth, Her master was Love, and her name was Peace. All the passions and scenes of that rapturous
When the feelings were young, and the world
Like the fresh bowers of Eden unfolding to view; All, all now forsaken, forgotten, foregone! And I, a lone exile remembered of none,
My high aims abandoned, my good acts undone, Aweary of all that is under the sun, -
With that sadness of heart which no stranger may scan,
I fly to the desert afar from man.
Where the clephant browses at peace in his wood, And the river-horse gambols unscared in the flood,
And the mighty rhinoceros wallows at will In the fen where the wild ass is drinking his fill Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side
Yet whilst with sorrow here we live opprest, What life is best?
O'er the brown karroo, where the bleating cry Of the springbok's fawn sounds plaintively; And the timorous quagga's shrill whistling neigh Courts are but only superficial schools
Is heard by the fountain at twilight gray; Where the zebra wantonly tosses his mane, With wild hoof scouring the desolate plain; And the fleet-footed ostrich over the waste Speeds like a horseman who travels in aste, Hieing away to the home of her rest,
The rural parts are turned into a den Of savage men :
And where's a city from foul vice so free, But may be term'd the worst of all the three ?
Where she and her mate have scooped their Domestic cares afflict the husband's bed,
Far hid from the pitiless plunderer's view In the pathless depths of the parched karroo.
Afar in the desert I love to ride,
With the silent Bush-boy alone by my side, Away, away, in the wilderness vast
What is it, then, to have or have no wife, But single thraldom, or a double strife?
Where the white man's foot hath never passed, And the quivered Coranna or Bechuan Hath rarely crossed with his roving clan, A region of emptiness, howling and drear, Which man hath abandoned from famine and To cross the seas to any foreign soil,
Which the snake and the lizard inhabit alone, With the twilight bat from the yawning stone; Where grass, nor herb, nor shrub takes root, Save poisonous thorns that pierce the foot; And the bitter-melon, for food and drink, Is the pilgrim's fare by the salt lake's brink ; A region of drought, where no river glides, Nor rippling brook with osiered sides; Where sedgy pool, nor bubbling fount, Nor tree, nor cloud, nor misty mount, Appears, to refresh the aching eye; But the barren earth and the burning sky, And the blank horizon, round and round, Spread, ― void of living sight or sound. And here, while the night-winds round me sigh, And the stars burn bright in the midnight sky, As I sit apart by the desert stone, Like Elijah at Horeb's cave, alone, "A still small voice" comes through the wild (Like a father consoling his fretful child), Which banishes bitterness, wrath, and fear, Saying, Man is distant, but God is near!
THE World's a bubble, and the Life of Man Less than a span:
In his conception wretched, from the womb, So to the tomb;
Curst from his cradle, and brought up to years With cares and fears.
Who then to frail mortality shall trust, But limns on water, or but writes in dust.
Our own affection still at home to please Is a disease:
Wars with their noise affright us; when they
We are worse in peace; What then remains, but that we still should ery For being born, or, being born, to die?
LOVE not, love not, ye hapless sons of clay! Hope's gayest wreaths are made of earthly flow.
Things that are made to fade and fall away Ere they have blossomed for a few short hours. Love not!
Love not the thing ye love may change; The rosy lip may cease to smile on you, The kindly-beaming eye grow cold and strange, The heart still warmly beat, yet not be true. Love not!
Love not! the thing you love may die, May perish from the gay and gladsome earth; The silent stars, the blue and smiling sky, Beam o'er its grave, as once upon its birth. Love not!
Love not! O warning vainly said In present hours as in years gone by! Love flings a halo round the dear ones' head, Faultless, immortal, till they change or die. Love not!
CAROLINE ELIZABETH SHERIDAN.
(HON. MRS. NORTON.)
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