Have sent my spirit forth to find
Fit food for an immortal mind,
Else of itself the prey!
And in th’ abstraction of that mood.
Full oft I’ve realized the good,
We boast not every day.
Sometimes tho’, with a courage bold,
As ever faced the arctic’s cold,
I pace the Colonnade;[173]
And then am soon compelled to beat,
And seek a cowardly retreat,
Within the parlour’s shade!
Sometimes the place,[174] warm shelter’d close,
Where Sharwood’s decorated house,
From roof to step all flowers,
Shines forth as Flora’s temple, where
Dominion falls to sea and air;—
Napoleonic powers!
There, snugly shelter’d from the blast,
My eyes right pensively I cast
Where famed sir Williams’s bark
Lies moor’d, awaiting the time when
That Noah of citizens again
Shall venture on such ark!
But, ah! still round the corner creeps,
That treach’rous wind! and still it sweeps
Too clean the path I tread:
Arm’d as with numerous needle points,
Its painful searchings pierce my joints,
And then capsize my head!
So home again full trot I speed,
As, after wound, the warrior’s steed;
And sit me down, and sigh
O’er the hard-hearted fate of those
Who feel like me these east-wind woes
That brain and marrow try!
Again upon the sea I look,
Of nature that exhaustless book
With endless wonder fraught:—
How oft upon that sea I’ve gazed,
Whose world of waters has amazed
Man—social or untaught.
And, spite of all that some may say,
It is the place from day to day,
Whereon the soul can dwell!
My soul enkindles at the sight
Of such accumulated might;
And loves such grandeur well!
J. S.