THE POET'S LAMENT. BY HON. RICHARD HENRY WILDE. As evening's dews to sun-parched Summer flowers, So to young burning breasts has verse been given, To soothe and cool the flush of feverish hours, Even with the tears exhaled from earth to Heaven. But when life's ebbing pulse wanes faint and slow, And coming Winter clouds the short'ning day, No dews the Night, no tears the eyes bestow, No words the soul to mourn its own decay. But frosts instead, the waste of years deform, These have no voice-yet might their ruins speak The past and present eloquently well But, fiendlike, on themselves their rage they wreak, Although they dare not wake the silent spell. For such, alas! all Poetry is past, Not even in History their thoughts survive, Like crowded cities into lava cast Oblivion-doomed, embalmed, while still alive. Above the stifled heart a nation's grave, Ores, in the darkest caverns of the earth, Pearls, in the sea's unfathomed depths may shine Gems in the mountain's living rock have birth— But never Poetry in souls like mine. Prolithe |