POEMS.
HOURS OF CHILDHOOD.
THERE is a solace to the aching breast,
Long worn by care, that sighs for tranquil rest;
Midst toils of day, in slumbers of the night,
Fond memory paints each infantine delight,
Each vanish’d joy that woke the bosom’s glow,
When all look’d gay as heaven’s aerial bow,
And youth, and health, and nature’s charms combin’d,
Shed calm contentment o’er the guileless mind.
The ceaseless waves of time, that swiftly roll
Man’s feeble bark to dark oblivion’s goal,
Sweep harmless o’er the mem’ry of those days,
When childhood tuned its unambitious lays,
And soft-eyed pleasure, in her gay attire,
Woke the wild numbers of the trembling lyre.
II
Bright were the scenes that fancy drew,
And blythe the hours that gaily flew,
In life’s gay morn, when all was new;
And softly, hope her radiance shed,
In happy childhood, round my head,
Deceitful smiled; that angel smile
Was wont my sorrows to beguile,
And every transient cloud of woe,
That dim’d the visions of my eye,
Fled, as the sun’s enliv’ning glow
Chas’d the light vapour from the sky:
And nature, in that halcyon hour,
Claim’d o’er my mind a magic power,
Ope’d to my eye her boundless store,
And bade her vast delights explore,
Her solemn contemplative glades,
Her grottoes cool, her sylvan shades,
Or where she wears no gentle smile,
But frowning wastes her form despoil;—
Midst gloomy haunts and forests drear,
Where silence tires the drowsy ear,
Or where, with stunning sound, the waves
Toss boisterous, when the tempest raves.
III
And fancy, oft, would guide my feet
To glooms, where sleepless spirits wander’d,
Or lonely vales, retirement sweet,
Where some lorn stream its course meander’d.
Oft, in some deep untrodden dell,
Where Eremite might build his cell,
Remote from all the ills that wait
The pompous equipage of state;
To human steps so much unknown,
Ev’n thought might find herself alone;
Nought on her silence to intrude,
Or break her much lov’d solitude.—
Imagination’s forceful power,
Would charm away the passing hour;
And fondly picture scenes of old,
By hoary matron’s legend told,
In number’s mystic, strange, and wild,
To soothe me, when a froward child;
Of ravening giant of the wold,
Of ladie fair, and gallant bold;
And grey hair’d minstrel, blythe and old;
Of martial lists, of daring deeds,
Of nodding plumes, and prancing steeds;
Of knight caparison’d in arms,
To combat for a damsel’s charms:
Or still, the more replete with fear,
The story whisper’d in the ear,
Lest angry fiend, perchance, might hear,
Of wither’d hag, or wandring sprite,
Who roam the unhallow’d hour of night,
Or form more gay, of Fairy light,
Who, when the moon’s soft ray is glancing
On the flowery green, is dancing
In many an airy roundelay;—
Vanishing ere dawn of day.