What if I warr'd upon the world? the world
Had wrong'd me first: I had endur'd the ills
Of hard injustice; all this goodly earth
Was but to me one wild waste wilderness;
I had no share in Nature's patrimony,
Blasted were all my morning hopes of Youth,
Dark DISAPPOINTMENT follow'd on my ways,
CARE was my bosom inmate, and keen WANT
Gnaw'd at my heart. ETERNAL ONE thou know'st
How that poor heart even in the bitter hour
Of lewdest revelry has inly yearn'd
For peace!
My FATHER! I will call on thee,
Pour to thy mercy seat my earnest prayer,
And wait thy peace in bowedness of soul.
Oh thoughts of comfort! how the afflicted heart,
Tired with the tempest of its passions, rests
On you with holy hope! the hollow howl
Of yonder harmless tenant of the woods
Bursts not with terror on the sober'd sense.
If I have sinn'd against mankind, on them
Be that past sin; they made me what I was.
In these extremest climes can Want no more
Urge to the deeds of darkness, and at length
Here shall I rest. What tho' my hut be poor—
The rains descend not thro' its humble roof:
Would I were there again! the night is cold;
And what if in my wanderings I should rouse
The savage from his thicket!
Hark! the gun!
And lo—the fire of safety! I shall reach
My little hut again! again by toil
Force from the stubborn earth my sustenance,
And quick-ear'd guilt will never start alarm'd
Amid the well-earn'd meal. This felon's garb—
Will it not shield me from the winds of Heaven?
And what could purple more? Oh strengthen me
Eternal One in this serener state!
Cleanse thou mine heart, so PENITENCE and FAITH
Shall heal my soul and my last days be peace.
Sonnets
SONNET I.
Go Valentine and tell that lovely maid
Whom Fancy still will pourtray to my sight,
How her Bard lingers in this sullen shade,
This dreary gloom of dull monastic night.
Say that from every joy of life remote
At evening's closing hour he quits the throng,
Listening alone the ring-dove's plaintive note
Who pours like him her solitary song.
Say that her absence calls the sorrowing sigh,
Say that of all her charms he loves to speak,
In fancy feels the magic of her eye,
In fancy views the smile illume her cheek,
Courts the lone hour when Silence stills the grove
And heaves the sigh of Memory and of Love.
SONNET II.
Think Valentine, as speeding on thy way
Homeward thou hastest light of heart along,
If heavily creep on one little day
The medley crew of travellers among,
Think on thine absent friend: reflect that here
On Life's sad journey comfortless he roves,
Remote from every scene his heart holds dear,
From him he values, and from her he loves.
And when disgusted with the vain and dull
Whom chance companions of thy way may doom,
Thy mind, of each domestic comfort full,
Turns to itself and meditates on home,
Ah think what Cares must ache within his breast
Who loaths the lingering road, yet has no home of rest!
SONNET III.
Not to thee Bedford mournful is the tale
Of days departed. Time in his career
Arraigns not thee that the neglected year
Has past unheeded onward. To the vale
Of years thou journeyest. May the future road
Be pleasant as the past! and on my friend
Friendship and Love, best blessings! still attend,
'Till full of days he reach the calm abode
Where Nature slumbers. Lovely is the age
Of Virtue. With such reverence we behold
The silver hairs, as some grey oak grown old
That whilome mock'd the rushing tempest's rage
Now like the monument of strength decayed
With rarely-sprinkled leaves casting a trembling shade.