'How many years have passed, since here
Upon this bald rock's crest,
I lay, and watched the shadows clear
Upon the lake's blue breast;
Since here, in many a poet dream,
I lay and heard the eagle scream?
'The seasons have led round the year
Many and many a time,
And other hands have gather'd here
The young flowers of the clime,
The which I wove, with thoughts of joy,
About my brows, a poet boy.
'And there were voices too 'lang syne,'
I think I hear them yet;
And eyes that loved to look on mine,
I shall not soon forget;
And hearts that felt for me before—
Alas, alas, they'll feel no more!
'I call them by remember'd names,
And weep when I have done;
The one, the yawning ocean claims,
The distant church-yard, one;
I call—the wood takes up the tone,
And only gives me back my own.
'Still from the lake swell up these walls,
Fronting the morning's sheen;
And still their storm-stained capitals
Preserve their lichens green;
And still upon the ledge I view
The gentian's eye of stainless blue.
'And far along in funeral lines,
Sheer to the higher grounds,
Touch'd by the finger of the winds,
The pines give out their sounds;
And far below, the waters lie,
Quietly looking to the sky.
'And still, a vale of softest green
Th' embracing prospect fills;
And still the river winds between
The parting of the hills;
The sky still blue, the flowers still found,
Just bursting from the moist spring ground.
'So was it many years ago,
As on this spot I stood,
And heard the waters lave below
The edges of the wood,
And thought, while music fill'd the air,
The fairies held their revel there.
*****
'I ask these scenes to give me back
My fresh, glad thoughts again;
Alas, they lie along the track
Which I have trod with men!
The flowers I gather'd here, a child,
I pluck'd, it seems, to deck a wild.'
A very young writer, capable of lines like these, is met with scarce a word of encouragement, but contrariwise, forced satire and second-hand denunciation; and this often from critics unable to produce any thing half so creditable as many of the effusions in the volume in question.