Though cold might chill and storms dismay,
Yet Zoilus will be far away:
With us at least, depart and share
No garret—but resentment there.
[314] On Nov. 24, 1785, Freneau sailed from Middletown Point as Master of the sloop Monmouth bound for southern ports. This lyric, first published in the edition of 1788, seems to have been his valedictory to the muse for a season. His conflict with Oswald and other critics had much embittered him. The text is from the edition of 1809.
THE DEPARTURE[315]
1785
From Hudson's cold, congealing streams
As winter comes, I take my way
Where other suns prompt other dreams,
And shades, less willing to decay,
Beget new raptures in the heart,
Bid spleen's dejective crew depart,
And wake the sprightly lay.
Good-natur'd Neptune, now so mild,
Like rage asleep, or madness chain'd,
By dreams amus'd or love beguil'd,
Sleep on 'till we our port have gain'd.
The gentle breeze that curls the deep,
Shall paint a finer dream on sleep!—
Ye nymphs, that haunt his grottoes low,
Where sea green trees on coral grow,
No tumults make
Lest he should wake,
And thus the passing shade betray
The sails that o'er his waters stray.
Sunk is the sun from yonder hill,
The noisy day is past;
The breeze decays, and all is still,
As all shall be at last;
The murmuring on the distant shore,
The dying wave is all I hear,
The yellow fields now disappear,
No painted butterflies are near,
And laughing folly plagues no more.
The woods that deck yon' fading waste,
That every wanton gale embrac'd,
Ere summer yet made haste to fly;
How smit with frost the pride of June!
How lost to me! how very soon
The fairy prospects die!
Condemn'd to bend to winter's stroke,
Low in the dust the embowering oak
Has bid the fading leaf descend,
Their short liv'd verdure at an end;
How desolate the forests seem,
Beneath whose shade
The enamour'd maid
Was once so fond to dream.
What now is left of all that won
The eye of mirth while summer stay'd—
The birds that sported in the sun,
The sport is past, the song is done;
And nature's naked forms declare,
The rifled groves, the vallies bare,
Persuasively, tho' silent, tell,
That at the best they were but drest
Sad mourners for the funeral bell!