Ah! in life’s morn, the trusting soul
Is calm;—the hours unheeded roll;
No passions urge their fierce controul.
Then, not a wish was unsupplied,
For scarce a boon had I to crave,
Save those, which in the heart abide,
And those indulgent nature gave.
Upon the blossom of my cheek,
The rose bud’s hue was wont to speak
The calmest sunshine of the heart,
That health and happiness impart:
Free, as the mountain breeze, was I!
That sweeps the light cloud o’er the sky;
Unknown a foretaste of the woes,—
Companions of man’s ripening years,—
That bar the eyelids from repose,
And wash them with untimely tears.
I knew not, then, the brow o’ercast
By gloomy thought, or sullen care,
I brooded o’er no pleasures past;
The future, all look’d bright and fair:
An undefined, elysian dream,
Illum’d by hope’s deceitful beam.
That hope has past!—its early ray
No more irradiates my way.—
V
How wildly swells the craggy height!
Whence the rough torrent, rushing bright,
In morning’s gay reflected beams,
A sheet of burnished silver seems;
With bickering wave, and foaming spray
In columns rising to the day;
While, midst the far resounding roar
The dark plumed eagles proudly soar;
Commingling, with the discord rude
That wakes the mountain solitude,
Their rustling pinion’s heavy sound;
Their bodeing, and terrific scream;—
Re-echoing o’er the cliff profound;
Startling the owlet from his dream,
Where, in the darkest wood, supreme
In sullen loneliness, he sits,
Mutt’ring his moody tones by fits;
Till evening spreads her shadow dun,
And, ’neath the western hill, the sun
Has sunk, his daily circle run.
Then, to some distant turret’s height,
He speeds his melancholy flight,
To mope, unseen, the livelong night.
VI
Where every sense, in tumult drown’d,
Yields to the mighty torrent’s sound,
I loved in thoughtfulness to roam;—
Where the swift cataract, white with foam,
Rush’d down the steep, in tumult rude,
To muse in contemplative mood;
To dwell, upon the mountain’s brow,
O’er the soft scenes that spread below.
Ah! there are those, who senseless, scorn
Each joy of lovely nature born!
Nor listen to her angel voice.
Too sadly erring in their choice,
They fly the unfrequented shade,
The bower, for contemplation made;
And seek in concourse, noise, and strife,
Those calmer joys of human life
Which only in retirement dwell,
Remote from folly’s wild’ring spell.
There is a music in the sound,
That swells the eddying stream around;
A boldness in the torrent’s flood;
A calmness in the waving wood;
A softness in the verdant vale
Where fragrant flowers their balm exhale;
That fills the bosom with delight,
And charms the child of nature’s sight.
VII
I loved to stand upon the rock,
Sear’d many an age by thunder’s shock,
And mark the boiling flood beneath
Toss its wild foam, in many a wreath;
And count each bubble, as it rose,
Like joy’s bright gem, midst seas of woes;
Whelm’d, instant, in the rushing tide;—
Too vain and empty to abide.
So rise, upon life’s flowing stream,
The gay, who shine in folly’s beam:—
They glitter bright their little hour,
The shallow tools of transient power.
Then, like the bubble on the wave,
They sink beneath the pow’r that gave
Their fleeting splendour; by the frown
Of tyrants hurl’d from grandeur down.
VIII
Oft, on the mountain’s highest peak,
Round which rude peals of thunder break,—
When tempests from on high are hurl’d,—
I’ve stood, and mark’d, beneath unfurl’d,
The varied charms of nature’s face;
Where, undisturb’d, my eye could trace
Each winding brook, each rushing stream,
Each charm that wakes in fancy’s dream;
The ocean’s measureless expanse,
On whose calm breast bright shadows glance;
Unruffled, pure, and peaceful, save
Where zephyrs fan its sleeping wave.
There, breaking thro’ its endless blue,
Soft rise the isles of verdant hue,
Where heavenly habitants might rest,
And sanctify earth’s lovely breast.
And fancy oft would paint, (among
Their verdant bowers, where wild bird’s song
Enliven’d, with its melody,
The tranquil scene; which well might vie
With nature’s fairest, loveliest spot,)
The blest, and undisturbed lot,
With some congenial, tender breast,
To seek retirement, peace, and rest,
And bid to folly’s train adieu,
For verdant isle, in ocean blue.