But now I seek for other joys;
To think would drive my soul to madness; In thoughtless throngs and empty noise
conquer half my bosom's sadness.
Yet, even in these a thought will steal,
In spite of every vain endeavour;
And fiends might pity what I feel,
To know that thou art lost for ever.
I WOULD I were a careless child,
Still dwelling in my Highland cave,
Or roaming through the dusky wild,
Or bounding o'er the dark blue wave;
The cumbrous pomp of Saxon† pride
Accords not with the freeborn soul,
Which loves the mountain's craggy side,
And seeks the rocks where billows roll.
* First published in the second edition of Hours of Idleness.-ED. + Sassenage, or Saxon, a Gaelic word, signifying either Lowland or English.
Fortune! take back these cultured lands,
Take back this name of splendid sound!
I hate the touch of servile hands,
I hate the slaves that cringe around:
Place me along the rocks I love,
Which sound to Ocean's wildest roar; I ask but this-again to rove
Through scenes my youth hath known before.
Few are my years, and yet I feel
The world was ne'er design'd for me;
Ah! why do dark'ning shades conceal
The hour when man must cease to be?
Once I beheld a splendid dream,
A visionary scene of bliss:
Truth!—wherefore did thy hated beam
Awake me to a world like this?
I loved-but those I loved are gone;
Had friends-my early friends are fled;
How cheerless feels the heart alone
When all its former hopes are dead?
Though gay companions o'er the bowl
Dispel awhile the sense of ill;
Though pleasure stirs the maddening soul,
The heart-the heart is lonely still.
How dull! to hear the voice of those
Whom rank or chance, whom wealth or power, Have made, though neither friends nor foes,
Associates of the festive hour.
Give me again a faithful few,
In years and feelings still the same,
And I will fly the midnight crew,
Where boist'rous joy is but a name.
And woman! lovely woman, thou,
My hope, my comforter, my all!
How cold must be my bosom now,
When e'en thy smiles begin to pall!
Without a sigh would I resign
This busy scene of splendid woe,
To make that calm contentment mine,
Which virtue knows, or seems to know.
Fain would I fly the haunts of men—
I seek to shun, not hate mankind;
My breast requires the sullen glen,
Whose gloom may suit a darken'd mind.
Oh! that to me the wings were given
Which bear the turtle to her nest!
Then would I cleave the vault of heaven,
To flee away, and be at rest*.
* Psalm lv. ver. 6.-" And I said, Oh! that I had wings like a dove; for then would I fly away, and be at rest." This verse also constitutes a part of the most beautiful anthem in our language.
WRITTEN BENEATH AN ELM IN THE CHURCHYARD OF HARROW ON THE HILL, SEPTEMBER 2, 1807.
SPOT of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,
Swept by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;
Where now ale I muse, who oft have trod,
With those I loved, thy soft and verdant sod;
With those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore,
Like me, the happy scenes they knew before:
Oh! as I trace again thy winding hill,
Mine eyes admire, my heart adores thee still,
Thou drooping Elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,
And frequent mused the twilight hours away;
Where, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,
But, ah! without the thoughts which then were mine:
How do thy branches, moaning to the blast,
Invite the bosom to recall the past,
And seem to whisper as they gently swell,
"Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last farewell!”
When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'd breast,
And calm its cares and passions into rest,
Oft have I thought 'twould soothe my dying hour,
If aught may soothe when life resigns her power,
* First published in the second edition of the Hours of Idleness. -ED.
To know some humbler grave, some narrow cell,
Would hide my bosom where it loved to dwell;
With this fond dream methinks 'twere sweet to die-
And here it linger'd, here my heart might lie;
Here might I sleep where all my hopes arose,
Scene of my youth, and couch of my repose;
For ever stretch'd beneath this mantling shade,
Press'd by the turf where once my childhood play'd;
Wrapt by the soil that veils the spot I loved,
Mix'd with the earth o'er which my footsteps moved;
Blest by the tongues that charm'd my outhful ear,
Mourn'd by the few my soul acknowledged here;
Deplored by those, in early days allied,
And unremember'd by the world beside.
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