Begun and died upon the gentle wind.
Some cypresses beyond the time-worn breach
Appeared to skirt th' horizon, yet they stood
Within a bowshot-where the Cæsars dwelt,
And dwell the tuneless birds of night, amidst
A grove which springs through levelled battlements
And twines its roots with the imperial hearths:
Ivy usurps the laurel's place of growth;
But the gladiators' bloody Circus stands,
A noble wreck in ruinous perfection!
While Cæsars' chambers and the Augustan halls
Grovel on earth in indistinct decay.-
And thou didst shine, thou rolling moon, upon
All this, and cast a wide and tender light,
Which softened down the hoar austerity
Of rugged desolation, and filled up,
As 'twere anew, the gaps of centuries,
Leaving that beautiful which still was so,
And making that which was not, till the place
Became religion, and the heart ran o'er
With silent worship of the great of old!-
The dead, but sceptred sovereigns, who still rule
Our spirits from their urns. - 'Twas such a night
'Tis strange that I recall it at this time;
But I have found our thoughts take wildest flight
E'en at the moment when they should array
Themselves in pensive order.
IN what rich harmony, what polished lays,
Should man address thy throne, when Nature pays
Her wild, her tuneful tribute to the sky!
Yes, Lord, she sings thee, but she knows not why.
The fountain's gush, the long-responding shore,
The zephyr's whisper, and the tempest's roar,
The rustling leaf, in autumn's fading woods,
The wintry storm, the rush of vernal floods,
The summer bower, by cooling breezes fanned,
The torrent's fall, by dancing rainbows spanned,
The streamlet, gurgling through its rocky glen,
The long grass, sighing o'er the graves of men,
The bird that crests yon dew-bespangled tree,
Shakes his bright plumes, and trills his descant free,
The scorching bolt, that, from thine armory hurled,
Burns its red path, and cleaves a shrinking world,
All these are music to Religion's ear:
Music, thy hand awakes, for man to hear.
MAN hath a weary pilgrimage,
As through the world he wends;
On every stage from youth to age
Still discontent attends;
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,
And still remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.
To school the little exile goes,
Torn from his mother's arms,
What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemned to suffer through the day
Restraints which no rewards repay,
And cares where love has no concern,
Hope lengthens as she counts the hours
Before his wished return.
From hard control and tyrant rules,
The unfeeling discipline of schools,
In thought he loves to roam,
And tears will struggle in his eye
While he remembers with a sigh
The comforts of his home.
Youth comes; the toils and cares of life
Torment the restless mind;
Where shall the tired and harassed heart
Its consolation find?
Then is not Youth, as Fancy tells,
Life's summer prime of joy?
Ah, no! for hopes too long delayed,
And feelings blasted or betrayed,
Its fabled bliss destroy;
And Youth remembers with a sigh,
The careless days of Infancy.
Maturer Manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on,
But with the baseless hopes of Youth
Its generous warmth is gone;
Cold, calculating cares succeed,
The timid thought, the wary deed,
The dull realities of truth;
Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering with an envious sigh
The happy dreams of Youth.
So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow;
New ills that latter stage await,
And old Experience learns too late
That all is vanity below.
Life's vain delusions are gone by;
Its idle hopes are o'er;
Yet Age remembers with a sigh
The days that are no more.
SWEET Auburn! loveliest village of the plain, Where health and plenty cheered the laboring swain,
Where smiling spring its earliest visit paid,
And parting summer's lingering blooms delayed.
Dear, lovely bowers of innocence and ease,
Seats of my youth, when every sport could please, How often have I loitered o'er thy green,
Where humble happiness endeared each scene!
How often have I paused on every charm,
The sheltered cot, the cultivated farm,
The never-failing brook, the busy mill,
The decent church that topped the neighboring hill,
The hawthorn bush, with seats beneath the shade
For talking age, and whispering lovers made!
How often have I blessed the coming day,
When toil remitting lent its aid to play,
And all the village train, from labor free,
Led up their sports beneath the spreading tree!
While many a pastime circled in the shade!
The young, contending, as the old surveyed;
And many a gambol frolicked o'er the ground,
And sleights of art and feats of strength went round.
Sweet, smiling village, loveliest of the lawn;
Thy sports are fled, and all thy charms withdrawn ;
Amid thy bowers, the tyrant's hand is seen,
And desolation saddens all thy green:
No more thy glassy brook reflects the day,
But, choked with sedges, works its weedy way;
Along thy glades, a solitary guest,
The hollow-sounding bittern guards its nest.
Ill fares the land, to hastening ills a prey,
Where wealth accumulates, and men decay;
Princes and lords may flourish, or may fade;
A breath can make them, as a breath has made;
But a bold peasantry, their country's pride,
When once destroyed, can never be supplied.
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