Good-bye, Proud World. OOD-BYE, proud world! I'm going home; Thou art not my friend; I am not thine: Too long through weary crowds I roamA river ark on the ocean brine. Too long I am toss'd like the driven foam But now, proud world, I'm going home. Good-bye to Flattery's fawning face; To upstart Wealth's averted eye; To supple office, low and high; To crowded halls; to court and street; To frozen hearts, and hasting feet; I go to seek my own hearth-stone Echo the blackbird's roundelay, And evil men have never trod A spot that is sacred to thought and God. UNDERNEATH the sod, low lying, dark and drear, Yes, they're ever bending o'er her, eyes that weep; When the summer moon is shining, soft and fair, Rest in peace, thou gentle spirit, throned above; Souls like thine, with God, inherit life and love. 29 It is Good to be Here. WRITTEN IN A CHURCHYARD. METHINKS it is good to be here: If thou wilt, let us build-but for whom? Nor Elias nor Moses appear, But the shadows of eve that encompass the gloom, Shall we build to Ambition? Ah! no; Affrighted he shrinketh away; For see! they would pin him below To a small narrow cave, and begirt with cold clay, To Beauty? Ah! no; she forgets Nor knows the foul worm, that he frets The skin which but yesterday fools could adore, Shall we build to the Purple of Pride, The trappings which dizen the proud? Alas! they are all laid aside, And here's neither dress nor adornment allow'd, But the long winding-sheet and the fringe of the shroud. |