7 Relentless power! whose fated stroke
O'er wretched man prevails!
Ha! love's eternal chain is broke,
And friendship's covenant fails!
Upbraiding forms! a moment's ease—
O memory! how shall I appease
The bleeding shade, the unlaid ghost?
What charm can bind the gushing eye,
What voice console the incessant sigh,
And everlasting longings for the lost?
8 Yet not unwelcome waves the wood
That hides me in its gloom,
While lost in melancholy mood
I muse upon the tomb.
Their chequered leaves the branches shed;
Whirling in eddies o'er my head,
They sadly sigh that Winter's near:
The warning voice I hear behind,
That shakes the wood without a wind,
And solemn sounds the death-bell of the year.
9 Nor will I court Lethean streams,
The sorrowing sense to steep;
Nor drink oblivion of the themes
On which I love to weep.
Belated oft by fabled rill,
While nightly o'er the hallowed hill
Aërial music seems to mourn;
I'll listen Autumn's closing strain;
Then woo the walks of youth again,
And pour my sorrows o'er the untimely urn!
COMPLAINT OF NATURE.
1 Few are thy days and full of woe,
O man of woman born!
Thy doom is written, dust thou art,
And shalt to dust return.
2 Determined are the days that fly
Successive o'er thy head;
The numbered hour is on the wing
That lays thee with the dead.
3 Alas! the little day of life
Is shorter than a span;
Yet black with thousand hidden ills
To miserable man.
4 Gay is thy morning, flattering hope
Thy sprightly step attends;
But soon the tempest howls behind,
And the dark night descends.
5 Before its splendid hour the cloud
Comes o'er the beam of light;
A pilgrim in a weary land,
Man tarries but a night.
6 Behold, sad emblem of thy state!
The flowers that paint the field;
Or trees that crown the mountain's brow,
And boughs and blossoms yield.