Again the voice of music spoke:
'There is a happier sphere,
Where neither hope nor memory mock,
Yet joy is present there;
And dreaming souls to bliss have woke'—
Blest Spirit! tell me—where?
'Thou may'st with equal eye behold
Hours, days, and years behind thee rolled,
Grasping each present Now;
Nor dread the moment yet to come,
Nor weep o'er pleasure's mental tomb'—
Blest Spirit! tell me—how?
Although we find ourselves 'at the end of the tether,' we cannot resist the inclination to present the following forceful lines. Possibly the sentiment may be deemed heretical by the very imaginative and the young; but even such, if tasteful and discriminating persons, cannot choose but admire the melody of the verse, and the beauty of the imagery:
THE POETICAL CHARACTER.
In fiction's devious wilds the heart misled,
To dull reality ungrateful turns;
Substantial earth's fair plains untempting spread,
And day's blest beam with light unlovely burns.
Yet not all Fancy's dreams, most wild and bright,
Are worth one day of Comfort's calm routine;
And simple Truth, attired in vestal white,
Transcends her starry front and garments' sheen.
And constant woman's fond and glowing kiss,
And heaven's own workmanship of mortal charms,
Are worth whole ages of imagined bliss,
Lost in ideal Beauty's airy arms.
The monster brood that cloudy spectre bore
To rash Ixion, deem not half so vain
As the fond progeny of minstrel lore,
Nursed in the womb of a distempered brain.
Why float these visions of delusive birth
Before the wanderers on the wastes of time,
Ordained to tread the firm, unyielding earth,
Nor yet the spires of heaven forbidden climb?