There's not a joy the world can give like that it takes away When the glow of early thought declines in feeling's dull
'Tis not on youth's smooth cheek the blush alone, which fades so fast,
But the tender bloom of heart is gone, ere youth itself be past.
Then the few whose spirits float above the wreck of happi
Are driven o'er the shoals of guilt, or ocean of excess: The magnet of their course is gone, or only points in vain The shore to which their shiver'd sail shall never stretch
Then the mortal coldness of the soul like death itself comes down;
It cannot feel for others' woes, it dare not dream its own; That heavy chill has frozen o'er the fountain of our tears, And though the eye may sparkle still, 'tis where the ice appears.
Though wit may flash from fluent lips, and mirth distract the breast,
Through midnight hours that yield no more their former hope of rest;
'Tis but as ivy-leaves around the ruin'd turret wreathe, All green and wildly fresh without, but worn and gray beneath.
Oh could I feel as I have felt, or be what I have been, Or weep, as I could once have wept o'er many a vanish'd
As springs in deserts found seem sweet, all brackish though
So midst the wither'd waste of life, those tears would flow
As slow our ship her foamy track
Against the wind was cleaving, Her trembling pennant still look'd back To that dear isle 'twas leaving. So loth we part from all we love, From all the links that bind us; So turn our hearts, as on we rove, To those we've left behind us!
When, round the bowl, of vanish'd years We talk with joyous seeming – With smiles that might as well be tears, So faint, so sad their beaming; While memory brings us back again Each early tie that twined us, Oh, sweet's the cup that circles then To those we've left behind us!
And when, in other climes, we meet Some isle or vale enchanting, Where all looks flowery, wild, and sweet, And nought but love is wanting; We think how great had been our bliss If Heaven had but assign'd us To live and die in scenes like this, With some we've left behind us!
As travellers oft look back at eve When eastward darkly going, To gaze upon that light they leave Still faint behind them glowing, So, when the close of pleasure's day To gloom hath near consign'd us, We turn to catch one fading ray Of joy that's left behind us.
The last and greatest Herald of Heaven's King Girt with rough skins, hies to the deserts wild, Among that savage brood the woods forth bring, Which he more harmless found than man, and mild.
His food was locusts, and what there doth spring, With honey that from virgin hives distill'd; Parch'd body, hollow eyes, some uncouth thing Made him appear, long since from earth exiled.
There burst he forth: All ye whose hopes rely On God, with me amidst these deserts mourn, Repent, repent, and from old errors turn!
Who listen'd to his voice, obey'd his cry?
Only the echoes, which he made relent,
Rung from their flinty caves, Repent! Repent! William Drummond
ON THE LATE MASSACRE IN PIEDMONT
Avenge, O Lord! Thy slaughter'd saints, whose bones Lie scatter'd on the Alpine mountains cold; Even them who kept Thy truth so pure of old When all our fathers worshipt stocks and stones,
Forget not: In Thy book record their groans Who were Thy sheep, and in their ancient fold Slain by the bloody Piemontese, that roll'd Mother with infant down the rocks. Their moans
The vales redoubled to the hills, and they To Heaven. Their martyr'd blood and ashes sow O'er all the Italian fields, where still doth sway
The triple Tyrant: that from these may grow A hundred-fold, who, having learnt Thy way, Early may fly the Babylonian woe.
I met a traveller from an antique land Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand, Half sunk, a shatter'd visage lies, whose frown And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command Tell that its sculptor well those passions read Which yet survive, stamp'd on these lifeless things, The hand that mock'd them and the heart that fed; And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" Nothing beside remains. Round the decay Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare, The lone and level sands stretch far away.
Sole Lord of Lords and very King of Kings, He sits within the desert, carved in stone; Inscrutable, colossal, and alone,
And ancienter than memory of things. Graved on his front the sacred beetle clings; Disdain sits on his lips; and in a frown Scorn lives upon his forehead for a crown. The affrighted ostrich dare not dust her wings Anear this Presence. The long caravan's
Dazed camels stop, and mute the Bedouins stare. This symbol of past power more than man's Presages doom. Kings look — and Kings despair: Their sceptres tremble in their jewelled hands And dark thrones totter in the baleful air!
February the Twenty-sixth
THE TIDE RISES, THE TIDE FALLS
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls; Along the sea-sands damp and brown The traveller hastens toward the town, And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls, But the sea in the darkness calls and calls; The little waves, with their soft, white hands, Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls; The day returns, but nevermore Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Daughters of Time, the hypocritic Days, Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes, And marching single in an endless file, Bring diadems and fagots in their hands.
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdoms, stars, and sky that holds them all. I, in my pleachèd garden, watched the pomp,
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day Turned and departed silent. I, too late, Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
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