On the dead tree, a dull despondent flock, With not a brightness waving o'er their plumes, And nought save chattering discord in their note. The pale descending year, yet pleasing still, A gentler mood inspires; for now the leaf Incessant rustles from the mournful grove, Oft startling such as, studious, walk below, And slowly circles through the waving air. But should a quicker breeze amid the boughs Sob, o'er the sky the leafy deluge streams; Till choked, and matted with the dreary shower, The forest walks, at every rising gale, Roll wide the withered waste, and whistle bleak. Fled is the blasted verdure of the fields,
And, shrunk into their beds, the flowery race Their sunny robes resign.
WHERE the prime actors of the last year's scene, Their port so proud, their buskin, and their plume? How many sleep, who kept the world awake With lustre and with noise! Has Death proclaimed A truce, and hung his sated lance on high? 'Tis brandished still; nor shall the present year Be more tenacious of her human leaf, Or spread of feeble life a thinner fall.
But needless monuments to wake the thought: Life's gayest scenes speak man's mortality, Though in a style more florid, full as plain, As mausoleums, pyramids, and tombs. What are our noblest ornaments, but deaths Turned flatterers of life, in paint or marble, The well-stained canvass, or the featured stone? Our fathers grace, or rather haunt, the scene: Joy peoples her pavilion from the dead.
Professed diversions; cannot these escape? Far from it: these present us with a shroud, And talk of death, like garlands o'er the grave. As some bold plunderers, for buried wealth,
We ransack tombs for pastime; from the dust Call up the sleeping hero; bid him tread The scene for our amusement: How like gods We sit; and, wrapped in immortality, Shed generous tears on wretches born to die; Their fate deploring, to forget our own!
Where is the dust that has not been alive? The spade, the plough, disturb our ancestors: From human mould we reap our daily bread. The globe around earth's hollow surface shakes, And is the ceiling of her sleeping sons. O'er devastation we blind revels keep; Whole buried towns support the dancer's heel. Nor man alone; his breathing bust expires; His tomb is mortal: empires die. Where now The Roman, Greek? They stalk, an empty name! Yet few regard them in this useful light,
Though half our learning is their epitaph.
When down thy vale, unlocked by midnight thought, That loves to wander in thy sunless realms,
O Death! I stretch my view,-what visions rise! What triumphs, toils imperial, arts divine, In withered laurels glide before my sight! What lengths of far-famed ages, billowed high With human agitation, roll along
In unsubstantial images of air!
The melancholy ghosts of dead renown,
Whispering faint echoes of the world's applause, With penitential aspect, as they pass,
All point at earth, and hiss at human pride,
The wisdom of the wise and prancings of the great.
THESE thoughts, O Night, are thine;
From thee they came, like lovers' secret sighs, While others slept. So Cynthia, poets feign, In shadows veiled, soft, sliding from her sphere, Her shepherd cheered, of her enamoured less Than I of thee. And art thou still unsung,
Beneath whose brow, and by whose aid I sing? Immortal Silence! where shall I begin?
Where end? or how steal music from the spheres To soothe their goddess?
Nature's great ancestor! Day's elder born, And fated to survive the transient sun! By mortals and immortals seen with awe! A starry crown thy raven brow adorns,
An azure zone thy waist; clouds, in heaven's loom, Wrought through varieties of shape and shade, In ample folds of drapery divine,
Thy flowing mantle form, and heaven throughout Voluminously pour thy pompous train. Thy gloomy grandeurs-Nature's most august Inspiring aspect, claim a grateful verse; And, like a sable curtain starred with gold, Drawn o'er my labours past, shall close the scene.
18.-HYMN ON THE SEASONS.
THESE, as they change, Almighty Father! these Are but the varied God. The rolling year Is full of Thee. Forth in the pleasing Spring Thy beauty walks, thy tenderness and love. Wide flush the fields; the softening air is balm; Echo the mountains round; the forest smiles; And every sense, and every heart is joy. Then comes thy glory in the Summer months, With light and heat refulgent. Then thy sun Shoots full perfection thro' the swelling year: And oft thy voice in dreadful thunder speaks; And oft at dawn, deep noon, or falling eve, By brooks and groves, in hollow-whispering gales. Thy bounty shines in Autumn unconfined, And spreads a common feast for all that lives. In Winter awful Thou! with clouds and storms Around Thee thrown, tempest o'er tempest rolled, Majestic darkness! on the whirlwind's wing, Riding sublime, Thou bidst the world adore, And humblest Nature with thy northern blast.
Nature, attend! join, every living soul Beneath the spacious temple of the sky, In adoration join; and, ardent, raise
One general song! To Him, ye vocal gales,
Breathe soft, whose Spirit in your freshness breathes : O talk of Him in solitary glooms!
Where, o'er the rock, the scarcely waving pine Fills the brown shade with a religious awe.
And ye, whose bolder note is heard afar,
Who shake the astonished world, lift high to heaven The impetuous song, and say from whom you rage. His praise, ye brooks, attune, ye trembling rills; And let me catch it as I muse along.
Ye headlong torrents, rapid, and profound; Ye softer floods, that lead the humid maze Along the vale; and thou, majestic main, A secret world of wonders in thyself,
Sound His stupendous praise; whose greater voice Or bids you roar, or bids your roarings fall.
Soft roll your incense, herbs, and fruits, and flowers, In mingled clouds to Him, whose sun exalts,
Whose breath perfumes you, and whose pencil paints. Ye forests bend, ye harvests wave, to Him; Breathe your still song into the reaper's heart, As home he goes beneath the joyous moon. Ye that keep watch in heaven, as earth asleep Unconscious lies, effuse your mildest beams, Ye constellations, while your angels strike, Amid the spangled sky, the silver lyre. Great source of day! best image here below Of thy Creator, ever pouring wide, From world to world, the vital ocean round; On Nature write with every beam His praise. The thunder rolls: be hush'd the prostrate world; While cloud to cloud returns the solemn hymn. Bleat out afresh, ye hills: ye mossy rocks, Retain the sound: the broad responsive low, Ye valleys raise; for the great Shepherd reigns; And his unsuffering kingdom yet will come. Ye woodlands all, awake: a boundless song Burst from the groves! and when the restless day, Expiring, lays the warbling world asleep,
Sweetest of birds! sweet Philomela, charm
The listening shades, and teach the night His praise. Ye chief, for whom the whole creation smiles, At once the head, the heart, and tongue of all, Crown the great hymn! In swarming cities vast, Assembled men to the deep organ join
The long-resounding voice, oft breaking clear, At solemn pauses, through the swelling bass; And, as each mingling flame increases each, In one united ardour rise to heaven. Or, if you rather choose the rural shade, And find a fane in every sacred grove; There let the shepherd's flute, the virgin's lay, The prompting seraph, and the poet's lyre, Still sing the God of Seasons, as they roll. For me, when I forget the darling theme, Whether the blossom blows, the Summer ray Russets the plain, inspiring Autumn gleams, Or Winter rises in the blackening east; Be my tongue mute, may fancy paint no more, And, dead to joy, forget my heart to beat.
Should fate command me to the farthest verge Of the green earth, to distant barbarous climes, Rivers unknown to song; where first the sun Gilds Indian mountains, or his setting beam Flames on the Atlantic isles; 'tis nought to me: Since God is ever present, ever felt,
In the void waste as in the city full;
And where He vital breathes there must be joy. When even at last the solemn hour shall come, And wing my mystic flight to future worlds. I cheerful will obey; there, with new powers, Will rising wonders sing: I cannot go Where Universal Love not smiles around, Sustaining all yon orbs and all their suns; From seeming evil still educing good, And better thence again, and better still, In infinite progression. But I lose
Myself in Him, in Light ineffable!
Come then, expressive Silence, muse his praise.
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