ODE, WRITTEN ON WHIT-MONDAY
Hark! how the merry bells ring jocund round,
And now they die upon the veering breeze;
Anon they thunder loud
Full on the musing ear.
Wafted in varying cadence, by the shore
Of the still twinkling river, they bespeak
A day of jubilee,
An ancient holiday.
And, lo! the rural revels are begun,
And gaily echoing to the laughing sky,
On the smooth-shaven green
Resounds the voice of Mirth—
Alas! regardless of the tongue of Fate,
That tells them ’tis but as an hour since they,
Who now are in their graves,
Kept up the Whitsun dance;
And that another hour, and they must fall
Like those who went before, and sleep as still
Beneath the silent sod,
A cold and cheerless sleep.
Yet why should thoughts like these intrude to scare
The vagrant Happiness, when she will deign
To smile upon us here,
A transient visitor?
Mortals! be gladsome while ye have the power,
And laugh and seize the glittering lapse of joy;
In time the bell will toll
That warns ye to your graves.
I to the woodland solitude will bend
My lonesome way—where Mirth’s obstreperous shout
Shall not intrude to break
The meditative hour;