BION.
TO LYCON.
And does my friend again demand the strain,
Still seek to list the sorrow-soothing lay?
Still would he hear the woe-worn heart complain,
When melancholy loads the lingering day?
Shall partial friendship turn the favouring eye,
No fault behold, but every charm descry;
And shall the thankless bard his honour'd strain deny?
"No single pleasure shall your pen bestow:"
Ah, Lycon! 'tis that thought affords delight;
'Tis that can soothe the wearying weight of woe,
When memory reigns amid the gloom of night:
For fancy loves the distant scene to see,
Far from the gloom of solitude to flee,
And think that absent friends may sometimes think of me.
Oft when my steps have trac'd the secret glade,
What time the pale moon glimmering on the plain
Just mark'd where deeper darkness dyed the shade,
Has contemplation lov'd the night-bird's strain:
Still have I stood, or silent mov'd and slow,
Whilst o'er the copse the thrilling accents flow,
Nor deem'd the pensive bird might pour the notes of woe.
Yet sweet and lovely is the night-bird's lay,
The passing pilgrim loves her notes to hear,
When mirth's rude reign is sunk with parted day,
And silence sleeps upon the vacant ear;
For staid reflection loves the doubtful light,
When sleep and stillness lull the noiseless night,
And breathes the pensive song a soothing sad delight.
Fearful the blast, and loud the torrent's roar,
And sharp and piercing drove the pelting rain,
When wildly wandering on the Volga's shore,
The exil'd Ovid pour'd his plaintive strain;
He mourn'd for ever lost the joys of Rome,
He mourn'd his widow'd wife, his distant home,
And all the weight of woe that load the exile's doom.
Oh! could my lays, like Sulmo's minstrel, flow,
Eternity might love her Bion's name;
The muse might give a dignity to woe,
And grief's steep path should prove the path to fame:
But I have pluck'd no bays from Phoebus' bower,
My fading garland, form'd of many a flower,
May haply smile and bloom to last one little hour.
To please that little hour is all I crave,
Lov'd by my friends, I spurn the love of fame;
High let the grass o'erspread my lonely grave,
Let cankering moss obscure the rough-hewn name:
There never may the pensive pilgrim go,
Nor future minstrel drop the tear of woe,
For all would fail to wake the slumbering earth below.