This "summer of the mind," alas!
Must have its autumn—leafless, bare,
When all these pleasing phantoms pass,
And end in winter, age, and care!
Such, such is life, the moral tells—
The tempest, and its sunny smiles,
A warning voice the cheerful bells,
The knell of death, our youth beguiles!
SENT FOR THE ALBUM
OF THE REV. G—— C——,
With a Drawing of the Head of an Eminent Artist.
Dear Sir, you remember, when Herod of Jewry
Had given a ball, how a shocking old fury
Demanded, so bent was the vixen on slaughter.
The head of St. John at the hand of her daughter:
Now do not detest me, nor hold me in dread,
Because, like King Herod, I send you a head:
Not a saint's, by-the-bye, although taken from life,
But a head of my friend, by the hand of my wife.
WRITTEN
UNDER AN ELEGANT DRAWING OF A DEAD CANARY BIRD,
By Miss A.M. TURNER, Daughter of the Eminent Engraver.
Death to the very life! not the closed eye,
Not those small paralytic limbs alone,
But every feather tells so mournfully
Thy fate, and that thy little life has flown.