Or stretched, in undulating maze,
To tire with charms the wandering gaze,
The landscape bright before me lays:—
The valley, hill abrupt, and steep,
Sequester’d dell, remote and deep;
The rustling fields of golden corn,
Emblazon’d by the beams of morn;
The hamlet’s cluster’d form, where rest,
With health, and peace, the simply blest;
Where reigns, (by heaven auspicious lent,)
Joy’s purest spirit, calm content;
Enlivening every rustic eye,
That beams with self-taught sympathy.
Blest with each joy these scenes impart,
Which soothe, yet not corrupt the heart;
Unversed in manners of the crowd,
The falsly gay, the meanly proud,
Who scoff at peasant joys aloud;
Unversed in fashion’s mystic lore;
Untaught to crave another’s store;
They peaceful live, and calmly die,
Embosom’d in tranquillity.
X
The waving forest’s wide domain,
Beyond the lawn, my vision greets.
There, every verdure softly meets;—
The towering pine’s deep em’rald stain;
The willow’s light and cheerful green;
The beach, in yellow foilage drest;
The poplar’s dark and shining vest,
Its leaves, in every breath that quiver,
And in the cool air seem to shiver;
Each bright variety of hue
There strikes upon th’ admiring view.
Through its dark groves’ refreshing shade,
The wild breeze hollow murmurs made;
Its bosom heav’d with gentle motion,
Like the softly troubled ocean;
Beneath that forest’s sombre shade,
Oft have my vagrant footsteps stray’d,
Oft have I paus’d, its depths among,
To breathe a light and artless song;
Oft paus’d amidst its gloomy haunts,
Where nature’s wildest livery flaunts,
To heave the sigh that childhood grants,
When crowds of wishes, undefined,
Steal on the uninstructed mind.—
XI
Why did I sigh? I knew not, yet,
A semblance even of regret;
Why did I sigh? was it, because
Nature’s fair bloom would soon decay?
The fountain’s stream would know a pause,
The forest’s foilage fade away,
Each fairy vale, each verdant meadow,
Would pass, like morning’s fleeting shadow?
Ah no! that gloomy hour was fraught
With all the luxury of thought;—
A willing gloom, a painful pleasure,
Play’d o’er my heart in rapt’rous measure;
’Twas poesy’s spirit swell’d my soul,
And bade, on fancy’s golden pinions,
Airy thoughts, extatic, roll
O’er the mind’s unchain’d dominions.
XII
’Twas meditation’s hallowed ground!
And soft she shed her influence round:
O’er many a forest flower I stray’d,
That bloom’d beneath the dark oak’s shade,
And yielded sweet its wild perfume,
Shrouded in uncongenial gloom,—
And birds, from soft melodious throats,
To gentle echo sung their notes.
XIII
Upon the wild stream’s shadowy brink,
’Tis sweet, alone to stand, and think;—
In riper years it claims a sigh,
A sigh, the bosom cannot stifle,
That as the current rushes by,
Rending each flower that blossoms nigh,
So time our early joys will rifle.
Delights, that gild our dawn of day,
Like the swift stream, will pass away;
Each image, in life’s early dream,
Dissolves, ere manhood’s stronger beam
Lights the true pathway of our fate,
Or shows how vain, (but ah too late!)
Was the fair future fancy gave;
Vain as the streamlet’s gliding wave,
That sparkles but a moment’s space,
Then fades, nor leaves one single trace
Of where, or what it was before,—
Lost in the billow’s ceaseless roar!
We gaze, and as the river flows,
Life’s varying course its passage shows;
Now, swell’d by headlong mountain streams;
“Now, softly murmuring calm and slow,
Far off its waveless mirror gleams,
“(And heaven’s own shadow spreads below)
Amid the ever blooming grove,
“Like future joy thro’ hope’s false beams:
They fickle, frail, and worthless prove!
Each hour that owns bright pleasure’s sway;
The fire of genius; fancy’s ray;
Love’s cheating power, and ardent flame,
All! all! save friendship’s sacred name,
Upon the torrent wave of time,
Flee, with our manhood’s fleeting prime;
And leave, alone, the sullen gloom
Of spirits, journeying to the tomb;
Save, that, tho’ faint her light is beaming,
Hope still upon the soul is gleaming!
Points, thro’ misfortune’s darkest shade,
To brighter joys, that never fade;—
Not vivid, as in life’s gay morning
“She danc’d in nature’s lovely bowers;
Not falsely, as in youth adorning
With promis’d ecstacy the hours!
But calm, unclouded, firm, and pure;
Tho’ dim her beams, their guidance sure.—
So on the last resounding wave,
That speeds to an unfathom’d grave,
The sunbeam sheds its brilliant ray;
On each bright drop its glimm’rings play;
It fades in radiant beams of day:
Whelm’d in the ocean’s bosom deep,
The silent waves unconscious sleep;—
Unconscious, that they once had swept
Along the soil, where genius slept;
Or bounded o’er the rocky height,
Swell’d into rage by tempest’s might;
Or, that their waters once had laved
A land that ne’er might be enslaved;
By patriot arm in peril sav’d,
Ev’n as unconscious as the clay,
That wraps our remnants of decay,
When to the joyless sea of age
Recedes the stream of youthful rage.—