Unhappy White![1] while life was in its spring,
And thy young muse just waved her joyous wing,
The spoiler came; and all thy promise fair
Has sought the grave, to sleep for ever there.
Oh! what a noble heart was here undone,
When science self destroy'd her favourite son!
Yes! she too much indulged thy fond pursuit,
She sow'd the seeds, but death has reap'd the fruit.
'Twas thine own genius gave the final blow,
And help'd to plant the wound that laid thee low.
So the struck eagle, stretch'd upon the plain,
No more through rolling clouds to soar again,
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart,
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in his heart.
Keen were his pangs, but keener far to feel,
He nursed the pinion which impell'd the steel;
While the same plumage that had warm'd his nest
Drank the last life-drop of his bleeding breast.
[1] Henry Kirke White died at Cambridge in October, 1806, in consequence of too much exertion in the pursuit of studies that would have matured a mind which disease and poverty could not impair, and which death itself destroyed rather than subdued. His poems abound in such beauties as must impress the reader with the liveliest regret that so short a period was allotted to talents, which would have dignified even the sacred functions he was destined to assume.
SONNET ON HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
BY CAPEL LOFFT.
Master so early of the various lyre
Energic, pure, sublime!—Thus art thou gone?
In its bright dawn of fame that spirit flown,
Which breathed such sweetness, tenderness, and fire!
Wert thou but shown to win us to admire,
And veil in death thy splendour?—But unknown
Their destination who least time have shone,
And brightest beamed.—When these the Eternal Sire,
—Righteous, and wise, and good are all his ways—
Eclipses as their sun begins to rise,
Can mortal judge, for their diminish'd days,
What blest equivalent in changeless skies,
What sacred glory waits them?—His the praise;
Gracious, whate'er he gives, whate'er denies.
24th Oct. 1806.
SONNET OCCASIONED BY THE SECOND OF HENRY KIRKE WHITE.
BY CAPEL LOFFT.
Yes, fled already is thy vital fire,
And the fair promise of thy early bloom
Lost, in youth's morn extinct; sunk in the tomb;
Mute in the grave sleeps thy enchanted lyre!
And is it vainly that our souls aspire?
Falsely does the presaging heart presume
That we shall live beyond life's cares and gloom;
Grasps it eternity with high desire,
But to imagine bliss, feel woe, and die;
Leaving survivors to worse pangs than death?
Not such the sanction of the Eternal Mind.
The harmonious order of the starry sky,
And awful revelation's angel breath,
Assure these hopes their full effect shall find.