No band of friends or heirs be there, To weep, or wish, the coming blow; No maiden, with dishevell'd hair, To feel, or feign, decorous woe. But silent let me sink to Earth, With no officious mourners near: I would not mar one hour of mirth, Nor startle friendship with a fear. Yet Love, if Love in such an hour Could nobly check its useless sighs, Might then exert its latest power In her who lives and him who dies. 'Twere sweet, my Psyche! to the last Thy features still serene to see; Forgetful of its struggles past, E'en Pain itself should smile on thee. But vain the wish-for Beauty still Will shrink, as shrinks the ebbing breath; And woman's tears, produced at will, Deceive in life, unman in death. Then lonely be my latest hour, Without regret, without a groan! For thousands Death hath ceased to lower, And pain been transient or unknown. "Ay, but to die, and go,” alas! That what I loved, and long must love, Like common earth can rot; To me there needs no stone to tell, Yet did I love thee to the last Who didst not change through all the past, The love where Death has set his seal, Nor falsehood disavow: And, what were worse, thou canst not sea Or wrong, or change, or fault in me. The better days of life were ours; That all those charms have pass'd away, The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd Where all have gone, and all must go! To trace the change to foul from fair. To be the nothing that I was Ere born to life and living woe! Count o'er the joys thine hours have seen, STANZAS. Hea quanto minus est cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse! AND thou art dead, as young and fair I will not ask where thou liest low, I know not if I could have borne Had worn a deeper shade: As stars that shoot along the sky As once I wept, if I could weep One vigil o'er thy bed; Uphold thy drooping head; Yet how much less it were to gain, Though thou hast left me free, The loveliest things that still remain, Than thus remember thee! The all of thine that cannot die Through dark and dread Eternity, Returns again to me, There flowers or weeds at will may grow, And more thy buried love endears So I behold them not: It is enough for me to prove Than aught, except its living years. STANZAS. Ir sometimes in the haunts of men The semblance of thy gentle shade: Thus much of thee can still restore, Oh, pardon that in crowds awhile, I waste one thought I owe to thee, And, self-condemn'd, appear to smile, Unfaithful to thy memory! Nor deem that memory less dear, That then I seem not to repine; I would not fools should overhear One sigh that should be wholly thine. If not the goblet pass unquaff'd, It is not drain'd to banish care, The cup must hold a deadlier draught, That brings a Lethe for despair. And could Oblivion set my soul From all her troubled visions free, I'd dash to earth the sweetest bowl That drown'd a single thought of thee. TO A YOUTHFUL FRIEND. FEW years have pass'd since thou and I Were firmest friends, at least in name, And childhood's gay sincerity Preserved our feelings long the same. But now, like me, too well thou knowst And such the change the heart displays, If so, it never shall be mine To mourn the loss of such a heart; The fault was Nature's fault, not thine, Which made thee fickle as thou art. As rolls the ocean's changing tide, So human feelings ebb and flow; And who would in a breast confide Where stormy passions ever glow? It boots not, that together bred, Our childish days were days of joy ; My spring of life has quickly fled; Thou, too, hast ceased to be a boy. And when we bid adieu to youth, Slaves to the specious world's control, We sigh a long farewell to truth; That world corrupts the noblest soul. Ah, joyous season! when the mind Dares all things boldly but to lie; Not so in Man's maturer years, With fools in kindred vice the same, ON A CORNELIAN HEART WHICH Such is the common lot of man : WAS BROKEN. ILL-FATED Heart! and can it be That thou shouldst thus be rent in twain? Have years of care for thine and thee Alike been all employ'd in vain ? Yet precious seems each shatter'd part, And every fragment dearer grown, Since he who wears thee, feels thou art A fitter emblem of his own. Can we then 'scape from folly free? No, for myself, so dark my fate Through every turn of life hath been; But thou, with spirit frail and light, Alas! whenever folly calls Where parasites and princes meet, (For cherish'd first in royal halls, The welcome vices kindly greet) Even now thou'rt nightly seen to add There dost thou glide from fair to fair, That taint the flowers they scarcely taste. But say, what nymph will prize the flame Which seems, as marshy vapours move, To flit along from dame to dame, An ignis-fatuus-gleam of love? What friend for thee, howe'er inclined, /Will deign to own a kindred care? Who will debase his manly mind, For Friendship every fool may share? In time forbear; amidst the throng Be something, any thing, but-mean. Yet was I calm: I knew the time My breast would thrill before thy look; But now to tremble were a crime— We met, and not a nerve was shook. I saw thee gaze upon my face, Away! away! my early dream Remembrance never must awake: Oh! where is Lethe's fabled stream? My foolish heart be still, or break! FROM THE PORTUGUESE. IN moments to delight devoted, "My life!" with tenderest tone, you cry; Dear words! on which my heart had doted, If youth could neither fade nor die. To death even hours like these must roll, Ah! then repeat those accents never; Or change “my life! into "my soul!” Which, like my love, exists for ever. TO WELL! thou art happy, and I feel Thy husband's blest- and 'twill impart When late I saw thy favourite child, I thought my jealous heart would break; But when the unconscious infant smiled, I kiss'd it, for its mother's sake. I kiss'd it, and repress'd my sighs Mary, adieu! I must away: While thou art blest I'll not repine; But near thee I can never stay; My heart would soon again be thine. I deem'd that time, I deem'd that pride Had quench'd at length my boyish flame; Nor knew, till seated by thy side, My heart in all, save hope, the same. IMPROMPTU, IN REPLY TO A FRIEND WHEN from the heart where Sorrow sits, Her dusky shadow mounts too high, And o'er the changing aspect flits, And clouds the brow, or fills the eye; Heed not that gloom, which soon shall sink : My thoughts their dungeon know to well: Back to my breast the wanderers shrink, And droop within their silent cell. TO TIME. TIME! on whose arbitrary wing But drag or drive us on to die— For now I bear the weight alone. I would not one fond heart should share Thy future ills shall press in vain ; Retards, but never counts the hour. In joy I've sigh'd to think thy flight Would soon subside from swift to slow; Thy cloud could overcast the light, But could not add a night to woe; For then, however drear and dark, My soul was suited to thy sky; One star alone shot forth a spark To prove thee- not Eternity. That beam hath sunk; and now thou art A blank; a thing to count and curse Through each dull tedious trifling part, Which all regret, yet all rehearse. One scene even thou canst not deform; The limit of thy sloth or speed, When future wanderers bear the storm Which we shall sleep too sound to heed: And I can smile to think how weak Thine efforts shortly shall be shown, When all the vengeance thou canst wreak Must fall upon—a nameless stone! My curdling blood, my maddening brain, Pour me the poison; fear not thou! My wounded soul, my bleeding breast, A SONG. THOU art not false, but thou art fickle, TRANSLATION OF A ROMAIC LOVE- 'Tis this which breaks the heart thou SONG. AH! Love was never yet without Without one friend to hear my woe, Birds, yet in freedom, shun the net, Your hearts shall burn, your hopes expire. A bird of free and careless wing grievest, Too well thou lovest-too soon thou leavest. The wholly false the heart despises, Whose love is as sincere as sweet,When she can change who loved so truly, It feels what mine has felt so newly. To dream of joy and wake to sorrow We scarce our fancy can forgive, What must they feel whom no false vision, Who ne'er have loved, and loved in vain, Ah! sure such grief is fancy's scheming, Can neither feel nor pity pain, In flattering dreams I deem'd thee mine: My light of life! ah, tell me why Mine eyes like wintry streams o'erflow: And all thy change can be but dreaming! ON BEING ASKED WHAT WAS THE "ORIGIN OF LOVE?" THE "Origin of Love!”—Ah why And shouldst thou seek his end to know : My heart forebodes, my fears foresee, He'll linger long in silent woe; But live-until I cease to be. LINES Oh, God! that we had met in time, INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMED FROM A SKULL. When thou hadst loved without a crime, START not-nor deem my spirit fled: 1 lived, I loved, I quaff'd like thee; I died, let earth my bones resign: Fill up-thou canst not injure me; The worm hath fouler lips than thine. Better to hold the sparkling grape, The drink of Gods, than reptile's food. Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone, Quaff while thou canst—another race, When thou and thine like me are sped, May rescue thee from earth's embrace, And rhyme and revel with the dead. Why not? since through life's little day Our heads such sad effects produce; Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay, This chance is theirs, to be of use. Newstead Abbey, 1808. REMEMBER HIM. REMEMBER him, whom passion's power That yielding breast, that melting eye, Oh! let me feel that all I lost, But saved thee all that conscience fears; And blush for every pang it cost To spare the vain remorse of years. Yet think of this when many a tongue, Whose busy accents whisper blame, Would do the heart that loved thee wrong, And brand a nearly blighted name. Think that, whate'er to others, thou And I been less unworthy thee! Far may thy days, as heretofore, Itself destroy'd might there destroy; Then to the things whose bliss or woe, Like mine, is wild and worthless all, That world resign-such scenes forego, Where those who feel must surely fall. Thy youth, thy charms, thy tenderness, Since not by Virtue shed in vain, Though long and mournful must it be, The thought that we no more may meet; Yet I deserve the stern decree, And almost deem the sentence sweet. Still, had I loved thee less, my heart ON THE DEATH OF SIR PETER PARKER, BART. THERE is a tear for all that die, A mourner o'er the humblest grave; But nations swell the funeral cry, And Triumph weeps above the brave. For them is Sorrow's 'purest sigh O'er Ocean's heaving bosom sent: In vain their bones unburied lie, All earth becomes their monument! A tomb is theirs on every page, An epitaph on every tongue. The present hours, the future age, For them bewail, to them belong. For them the voice of festal mirth Grows hush'd, their name the only sound; While deep Remembrance pours to Worth The goblet's tributary round. |