IN IMITATION OF KLOPSTOCK.
pencil! wilt thou trace
A faithful image of the face,
Or wilt thou write the "Name Unknown'
Ordained to bless my charmèd soul,
And all my future fate control,
Unrivalled and alone?
Delicious Idol of my thought!
Though sylph or spirit hath not taught
My boding heart thy precious name;
Yet musing on my distant fate,
To charms unseen I consecrate
A visionary flame.
Thy rosy blush, thy meaning eye,
Thy virgin voice of melody,
Are ever present to my heart;
Thy murmured vows shall yet be mine,
My thrilling hand shall meet with thine,
And never, never part!
Then fly, my days, on rapid wing,
Till Love the viewless treasure bring;
While I, like conscious Athens, own
A power in mystic silence sealed,
A guardian angel unrevealed,
And bless the "Name Unknown!"
LINES ON LEAVING A SCENE IN BAVARIA.
DIEU the woods and waters' side,
Adieu the grotto, wild and wide,
The rocks abrupt, and grassy plain !
For pallid Autumn once again
Hath swelled each torrent of the hill;
Her clouds collect, her shadows sail,
And watery winds that sweep the vale
Grow loud and louder still.
But not the storm, dethroning fast
Yon monarch oak of massy pile;
Nor river roaring to the blast
Around its dark and desert isle ;
Nor church-bell tolling to beguile
The cloud-born thunder passing by,
Can sound in discord to my soul :
Roll on, ye mighty waters, roll!
And rage, thou darkened sky!
Thy blossoms now no longer bright;
Thy withered woods no longer green;
Yet, Eldurn shore, with dark delight
I visit thy unlovely scene!
For many a sunset hour serene
My steps have trod thy mellow dew;
When his green light the fire-fly gave,
When Cynthia from the distant wave
Her twilight anchor drew,
And ploughed, as with a swelling sail,
The billowy clouds and starry sea:
Then while thy hermit nightingale
Sang on his fragrant apple-tree-
Romantic, solitary, free,
The visitant of Eldurn's shore,
On such a moonlight mountain strayed
As echoed to the music made
By Druid harps of yore.
Around thy savage hills of oak,
Around thy waters bright and blue,
No hunter's horn the silence broke,
No dying shriek thine echo knew ;
But safe, sweet Eldurn woods, to you
The wounded wild deer ever ran,
Whose myrtle bound their grassy cave,
Whose very rocks a shelter gave
From blood-pursuing man.
Oh heart effusions, that arose
From nightly wanderings cherished here;
To him who flies from many woes,
Even homeless deserts can be dear!
The last and solitary cheer
Of those that own no earthly home,
Say-is it not, ye banished race,
In such a loved and lonely place
Companionless to roam ?
Yes! I have loved thy wild abode,
Unknown, unploughed, untrodden shore;
Where scarce the woodman finds a road, And scarce the fisher plies an oar: For man's neglect I love thee more; That art nor avarice intrude
To tame thy torrent's thunder-shock, Or prune thy vintage of the rock Magnificently rude.
Unheeded spreads thy blossomed bud
Its milky bosom to the bee;
Unheeded falls along the flood
Thy desolate and aged tree.
Forsaken scene, how like to thee
The fate of unbefriended Worth!
Like thine her fruit dishonoured falls;
Like thee in solitude she calls
A thousand treasures forth.
O silent spirit of the place,
If, lingering with the ruined year, Thy hoary form and awful face
I yet might watch and worship here! Thy storm were music to mine ear, Thy wildest walk a shelter given Sublimer thoughts on earth to find, And share, with no unhallowed mind, The majesty of heaven.
What though the bosom friends of Fate-
Prosperity's unweaned brood-
Thy consolations cannot rate,
O self-dependent solitude!
Yet with a spirit unsubdued,
Though darkened by the clouds of Care,
To worship thy congenial gloom,
A pilgrim to the Prophet's tomb
Misfortune shall repair.
On her the world hath never smiled
Or looked but with accusing eye;
All-silent goddess of the wild,
To thee that misanthrope shall fly!
I hear her deep soliloquy,
I mark her proud but ravaged form,
As stern she wraps her mantle round,
And bids, on winter's bleakest ground,
Defiance to the storm.
Peace to her banished heart, at last,
In thy dominions shall descend,
And strong as beechwood in the blast,
Her spirit shall refuse to bend ;
Enduring life without a friend,
The world and falsehood left behind,
Thy votary shall bear elate
(Triumphant o'er opposing Fate), Her dark inspired mind.
But dost thou, Folly, mock the muse
A wanderer's mountain walk to sing,
Who shuns a warring world, nor wooes
The vulture cover of its wing?
Then fly, thou cowering, shivering thing,
Back to the fostering world beguiled,
To waste in self-consuming strife
The loveless brotherhood of life,
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