How could a parent, love-beguiled,
In life's fair prime resign a child
So duteous, good, and kind?
The warblers of the soothing strain
Must string the elegiac lyre in vain
To soothe the wounded mind!
Yet Fancy, hovering round the tomb,
Half envies, while she mourns thy doom,
Dear poet, saint, and sage!
Who into one short span, at best,
The wisdom of an age compress'd,
A patriarch's lengthen'd age!
To him a genius sanctified,
And purged from literary pride,
A sacred boon was given :
Chaste as the psalmist's harp, his lyre
Celestial raptures could inspire,
And lift the soul to Heaven.
'Twas not the laurel earth bestows,
"Twas not the praise from man that flows,
With classic toil he sought:
He sought the crown that martyrs wear,
When rescued from a world of care;
Their spirit too he caught.
Here come, ye thoughtless, vain, and gay,
Who idly range in Folly's way,
And learn the worth of time:
Learn ye, whose days have run to waste, How to redeem this pearl at last,
Atoning for your crime.
This flower, that droop'd in one cold clime, Transplanted from the soil of time
In full perfection there shall bloom;
And those who now lament his doom
Must bow to God's decree.
ON READING THE POEM ON SOLITUDE,
In the second volume of H. K. White's 'Remains.
BUT art thou thus indeed 'alone?'
Quite unbefriended-all unknown?
And hast thou then his name forgot
Who form'd thy frame, and fix'd thy lot?
Is not his voice in evening's gale?
Beams not with him the star' so pale?
Is there a leaf can fade and die,
Unnoticed by his watchful eye'
Each fluttering hope-each anxious fear-
Each lonely sigh-each silent tear-
To thine Almighty Friend are known;
And say'st thou, thou art all alone?'
BY THE REV. W. B. COLLYER, A. M.
O, LOST too soon! accept the tear
A stranger to thy memory pays!
Dear to the muse, to science dear,
In the young morning of thy days!
All the wild notes that pity loved
Awoke, responsive still to thee,
While o'er the lyre thy fingers roved
In softest, sweetest harmony.
The chords that in the human heart
Compassion touches as her own,
Bore in thy symphonies a part—
With them in perfect unison.
Amidst accumulated woes,
That premature afflictions bring,
Submission's sacred hymn arose,
Warbled from every mournful string.
When o'er thy dawn the darkness spread,
And deeper every moment grew;
When rudely round thy youthful head,
The chilling blasts of sickness blew ;
Religion heard no 'plainings loud,
The sigh in secret stole from thee;
And pity, from the dropping cloud,'
Shed tears of holy sympathy.
Cold is that heart in which were met
More virtues than could ever die ;
The morning-star of hope is set-
The sun adorns another sky.
O partial grief! to mourn the day
So suddenly o'erclouded here,
To rise with unextinguish'd ray-
To shine in a superior sphere !
Oft genius early quits this sod,
Impatient of a robe of clay,
Spreads the light pinion, spurns the clod,
And smiles, and soars, and steals away!
But more than genius urged thy flight,
And mark'd the way, dear youth! for thee:
Henry sprang up to worlds of light,
On wings of immortality!
Blackheath Hill, 24th June, 1808.
ON THE DEATH OF H. K. WHITE.
Too, too prophetic did thy wild note swell,
Impassion'd minstrel ! when its pitying wail
Sigh'd o'er the vernal primrose as it fell
Untimely, wither'd by the northern gale.*
Thou wert that flower of promise and of prime!
Whose opening bloom, 'mid many an adverse blast,
Charm'd the lone wanderer through this desert clime,
But charm'd him with a rapture soon o'ercast,
To see thee languish into quick decay.
Yet was not thy departing immature?
For ripe in virtue thou wert reft away,
And pure in spirit, as the bless'd are pure;
Pure as the dew-drop, freed from earthly leaven,
That sparkles, is exhaled, and blends with heaven! †
* See Clifton Grove, p. 16, ed. 1803.
† Young, I think, says of Narcissa, 'she sparkled, was exhaled, and went to Heaveu.'
|