HOURS OF
May no delights decoy!
O’er roses may your footsteps move,
Your smiles be ever smiles of love,
Your tears be tears of joy I
Oh.! if you wish that happinessYour eoming days and years may bless,
And virtues crown your brow;
Be still as you were wont to be,
Spotless as you’ve been known to me,—
Be still as you are now.
And though some trifling share of praise,
To cheer my last declining days,
To mo were doubly dear;
"Whilst blessing your belo^d name,
I’d waive at once a poet's fame,
To prove a prophet here.
LINES written beneath an elm in
THE CHURCHYARD OF HARROW.
^ p 0T of my youth! whose hoary branches sigh,VinfPt by the breeze that fans thy cloudless sky;.Where now alone I muse, who oft have trod,
With those I loved, the soft and verdant sod;
”.Uh those who, scatter'd far, perchance deplore,tjJKe me, the happy scenes they knew before:
V T . * as I trace again thy winding hill,
Th 36 eyes a< * mire ’ m y heart adores thee still,
J bou drooping elm! beneath whose boughs I lay,\Vk ^ re{ inent mused the twilight hours away;
here, as they once were wont, my limbs recline,t’Ut ah! without the thoughts which then weremine.
Ilow do thy branches, moaning to the blast,invite the bosom to recall the past,
And seom to whisper, as they gently swell,
“ Take, while thou canst, a lingering, last fare-well!"
When fate shall chill, at length, this fever'dbreast,
And calm its cares and passionR into rest,
H have I thought, ’twould soothe my dyingv f hour,—
T a ?Sht may soothe when life resigns her power,—\V *ttow some humbler grave, some narrow cell,
^ ^ide my bosom where it loved to dwell.lt h this fond dream, methinks, ’twere sweet toA a die—
Hn. ^ere it linger'd, here my heart might lio;
Sr- l * e ^'Sht I sleep, where all my hopes arose;
‘ cene of my youth, and couch of my repose;or ever stretch’d beneath this mantling shade,ress ’d by the turf where once my childhoodplay'd;
v. ra Pt by the soil that veils the spot I loved,lx d with the earth o’er which my footstepsmoved
Blest by the tongues that charmed my youthful earMourn’d by the few my soul acknowledged here;Deplored by those in early days allied.
And unremember’d by the world beside.
September 2nd, 1807
LINES INSCRIBED UPON A CUP FORMEDFROM A SKULL,
Start not—nor deem my spirit fled:
In me behold the only skullFrom which, unlike a living head,
Whatever flows is never dull.
I lived, I loved, I quaff'd like thee:
I died : let earth my bones resign:
Fill up—thou eanst not injure me;
The worm hath fouler lips thau thine.
Better to hold the sparkling grape,
Than nurse the earth-worm’s slimy brood;
And circle in the goblet's shape,
The drink of gods, than reptile's food.
Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,
In aid of others’ let me shine;
And when, alas! our brains are gone,
Wbat nobler substitute than wiue?
Quaff while thou canst; another race,
When thou and thine, like me, are sped,
May rescue thee from earth's embrace,
And rhyme and revel with the dead.
Why not—since through life’s little dayOur heads such sad effects produce ?
Redeem’d from worms and wasting clay,
This chance is theirs, to be of use.
JTeicstead Abbey, 1808.
ON REVISITING HARROW.*
Herb once engaged the stranger's view,Young Friendship’s record simply traced;Few were her words, but yet, though few,Resentment’s hand the line defaced.
Deeply she cut, but not erased,
The characters were still so plain,'
That Friendship once return’d, and gazed,—Till Memory hail’d the words again.
Repentance placed them as before;
Forgiveness join’d her gentle name;
So fair the inscription seem'd once more,That Friendship thought it still the same.
Thus might the record now have been:
But, ah! in spite of Hope’s endeavour,
Or Friendship’s tears, Pride rush’d between,And blotted out the line for ever.f
These lines were suggested by finding the names of himself and a friend, which bad been cut as a+ ?2, rial ! erased by that friend on account of some offence taken.
The recording angel dropp’d a tear upon the word as he wrote it, and blotted itoutforever.''—^nes&oi-yofLefevre.