Object of my implacable disgust.
What!-will a man play tricks, will he indulge
A silly fond conceit of his fair form
And just proportion, fashionable mein
And pretty face, in presence of his God?
Or will he seek to dazzle me with tropes,
As with the diamond on his lily hand,
And play his brilliant parts before my eyes,
When I am hungry for the bread of life?
He mocks his Maker, prostitutes and shames
His noble office, and, instead of truth,
Displaying his own beauty, starves his flock.
Therefore avaunt all attitude, and stare,
And start theatric, practised at the glass!
I seek divine simplicity in him,
Who handles things divine; and all besides,
Though learned with labour, and tho' much admired
By curious eyes and judgments ill informed,
To me is odious as the nasal twang
Heard at conventicle, where worthy men,
Misled by custom, strain celestial themes
Through the pressed nostril, spectacle-bestrid.
It is not that my lot is low,
That bids this silent tear to flow;
It is not grief that bids me moan,
It is that I am all alone.
In woods and glens I love to roam,
When the tired hedger hies him home;
Or by the woodland pool to rest,
When pale the star looks on its breast.
Yet when the silent evening sighs
With hallowed airs, and sympathies,
My spirit takes another tone,
And sighs that it is all alone.
The Autumn leaf is sear and dead,
It floats upon the water's bed;
I would not be a leaf to die,
Without recording sorrow's sigh.
The woods and winds, with sudden wail,
Tell all the same unvaried tale;
I've none to smile when I am free,
And, when I sigh, to sigh with me.
Yet in my dreams a form I view,
That thinks on me, and loves me too:
I start, and when the vision's flown,
weep that I am all alone.
Child of the dust, I heard thee mourn,
'Will God forsake, and not return?
Unhealed my wounds, my woes unknown,
Down to the grave I sink alone.'
But art thou thus indeed alone,
Quite unbefriended and unknown?
And hast thou then His love forgot,
Who formed thy frame and fixed thy lot?
Who laid his Son within the grave,
Thy soul from endless death to save,
And gave his Spirit to console,
And make thy wounded bosom whole?
Is not his voice in evening's gale ?
Beams not in him the stars so pale?
Is there a leaf can fade or 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?
WHO EXPIRED AT MISSOLONGHI ON THE 19TH AFRIL 1824.
He's gone! the glorious spirit's fled!
The minstrel's strains are hushed and o'er,
And lowly lies the mighty dead
Upon a far and foreign shore.
Still as the harp o'er Babel's streams,
For ever hangs his tuneful lyre,
And he, with all his glowing dreams,
Quenched like a meteor's fire!
So sleeps the great, the young, the brave.
Of all beneath the circling sun,
A muffled shroud-a dungeon grave→→
To him, the bard, remain alone.
So, genius, ends thy blazing reign-
So mute the music of the tongue,
Which poured but late the loftiest strain
That ever mortal sung.
Yet musing on his early doom,
Methinks for him no tears should be,
Above whose bed of rest shall bloom
The laurels of eternity.
But, oh! while glory gilds his sleep,
How shall the heart its loss forget?
His memory in the tears of Greece
Shall be embalmed for evermore,
And till her tale of troubles cease,
His spirit walk her silent shore.
Then even the winds that wake in sighs,
Shall still seem whispering of his name;
And lonely rocks and mountains rise
His monuments of fame !
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