Hush'd is the lyre—the hand that swept
The low and pensive wires,
Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires.
Yes—it is still—the lyre is still;
The spirit which its slumbers broke
Hath pass'd away,—and that weak hand that woke
Its forest melodies hath lost its skill.
Yet I would press you to my lips once more,
Ye wild, yet withering flowers of poesy;
Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour,
Mix'd with decaying odours: for to me
Ye have beguiled the hours of infancy,
As in the wood-paths of my native—
* * * * *
When high romance o'er every wood and stream
Dark lustre shed, my infant mind to fire,
Spell-struck, and fill'd with many a wondering dream,
First in the groves I woke the pensive lyre.
All there was mystery then, the gust that woke
The midnight echo was a spirit's dirge,
And unseen fairies would the moon invoke
To their light morrice by the restless surge.
Now to my sober'd thought with life's false smiles,
Too much ...
The vagrant Fancy spreads no more her wiles,
And dark forebodings now my bosom fill.
Once more, and yet once more,
I give unto my harp a dark woven lay;
I heard the waters roar,
I heard the flood of ages pass away.
O thou, stern spirit, who dost dwell
In thine eternal cell,
Noting, gray chronicler! the silent years,
I saw thee rise,—I saw the scroll complete;
Thou spakest, and at thy feet
The universe gave way.
[1] These Fragments were written upon the back of his mathematical papers, during the last year of his life.
FRAGMENT OF AN ECCENTRIC DRAMA.
WRITTEN AT A VERY EARLY AGE.