Whatever impulse first conferr'd that name, With thoughts and feelings it may well impart: Not that I would forego the surer chart Of REVELATION for a mere conceit; Yet with indulgence may the Christian's heart Each frail memorial of HIS MASTER greet, And chiefly what recals his love's most glorious feat. Be this the closing tribute of my strain! Be this, fair flowers! of charms-your last and best! That when THE SON OF GOD for man was slain, prest, Not only bore for us Death's cruel doom, But won the thornless crown of amaranthine bloom. IX. ON VISITING A SCENE OF CHILDHOOD. LONG years had elapsed since I gazed on the scene, Which my fancy still robed in its freshness of green; The spot where, a schoolboy, all thoughtless, I stray'd, By the side of the stream in the gloom of the shade. I thought of the friends who had roam'd with me there, When the sky was so blue and the flowers were so fair; All scatter'd all sunder'd, by mountain and wave, And some in the cold, silent womb of the grave! I thought of the green banks that circled around, With wild flowers, with sweet-briar, and eglantine crown'd; I thought of the river, all stirless and bright And I thought of the trees under which we had stray'd, Of the broad leafy boughs, with their coolness of shade; And I hoped, though disfigured, some token to find Of the names and the carvings impress'd on the rind. All eager I hasten'd the scene to behold, Render'd sacred and dear by the feelings of old; And I dream'd that, unalter'd, my eye should explore This refuge, this haunt, this Elysium of yore! 'T was a dream-not a token or trace could I view Of the names that I loved, of the trees that I knew ; Like the shadows of night at the dawning of day, Like a tale that is told, they had vanish'd away! And methought the low river, that murmur'd along, Was more dull in its motion, more sad in its song, Since the birds that had nestled and warbled above Had all fled from its banks at the fall of the grove! I paused, and the moral came home to my heart— Behold how of earth all the glories depart! Our visions are baseless, our hopes but a gleam, Our staff but a reed, and our life but a dream! Then, oh! let us look, let our prospects allure X. ODE TO CONTENT. O THOU, the nymph with placid eye; Receive my temp'rate vow: Not all the storms that shake the pole O come in simplest vest array'd, To bless my longing sight; No more by varying passions beat, Where in some pure and equal sky, The modest virtues dwell. Simplicity, in attic vest, And Innocence, with candid breast, And Hope, who points to distant years There Health, thro' whose kind bosom glide The temperate joys in even tide, That rarely ebb or flow; And Patience there, thy sister meek, |