Complete Poetical Works of Robert Southey
Page 40
Lucy, if then the power to thee were given
In that cold form its life to reengage,
Wouldst thou call back the warbler from its Heaven
To be again the tenant of a cage?
15.
Only that thou mightst cherish it again,
Wouldst thou the object of thy love recall
To mortal life, and chance, and change, and pain,
And death, which must be suffered once by all?
16.
Oh, no, thou say’st: oh, surely not, not so!
I read the answer which those looks express;
For pure and true affection, well I know,
Leaves in the heart no room for selfishness.
17.
Such love of all our virtues is the gem;
We bring with us the immortal seed at birth:
Of heaven it is, and heavenly; woe to them
Who make it wholly earthly and of earth!
18.
What we love perfectly, for its own sake
We love, and not our own, being ready thus
Whate’er self-sacrifice is ask’d, to make;
That which is best for it, is best for us.
19.
O Lucy! treasure up that pious thought!
It hath a balm for sorrow’s deadliest darts;
And with true comfort thou wilt find it fraught,
If grief should reach thee in thy heart of hearts.
Buckland, 1828.
MY DAYS AMONG THE DEAD ARE PAST
1.
MY days among the Dead are past;
Around me I behold,
Where’er these casual eyes arc cast,
The mighty minds of old;
My never-failing friends arc they,
With whom I converse day by day.
2.
With them I take delight in weal,
And seek relief in woe;
And while I understand and feel
How much to them I owe,
My cheeks have often been bedew’d
With tears of thoughtful gratitude.
3.
My thoughts are with the Dead; with them
I live in long-past years;
Their virtues love, their faults condemn,
Partake their hopes and fears,
And from their lessons seek and find
Instruction with an humble mind.
4.
My hopes are with the Dead; anon
My place with them will be,
And I with them shall travel on
Through all Futurity:
Yet leaving here a name, I trust,
That will not perish in the dust.
Keswick, 1818.
IMITATED FROM THE PERSIAN.
LORD! who art merciful as well as just,
Incline thine ear to me, a child of dust!
Not what I would, O Lord! I offer thee,
Alas! but what I can.
Father Almighty, who hast made me man,
And bade me look to Heaven, for Thou art there,
Accept my sacrifice and humble prayer.
Four things which are not in thy treasury,
I lay before thee, Lord, with this petition: —
My nothingness, my wants,
My sins, and my contrition.
Lowther Castle, 1828.
THE RETROSPECT.
................ “On life’s wide plain
Cast friendless, where unheard some sufferer cries
Hourly, and oft our road is lone and long,
Twere not a crime, should we awhile delay
Amid the sunny field; and happier they,
Who, as they wander, woo the charm of song
To cheer their path, ‘till they forget to weep,
And the tired sense is husht and sinks to sleep.”
BOWLES.
As on I journey through the vale of years,
Cheer’d by fond hopes, and chill’d by doubtful fears;
Allow me, Memory, in thy treasur’d store,
To view those days that will return no more:
Oh! let thy vivid pencil call to view
Each distant scene, each long-past hour anew,
Ere yet my bosom knew the touch of grief,
Ere yet my bosom lov’d the lyre’s relief.
Yes, as thou dart’st thine intellectual ray,
The clouds of mental darkness melt away:
So when, at earliest day’s awaking dawn,
The hovering mists obscure the dewy lawn,
O’er all the champain spread their influence chill,
Hang o’er the vale, and hide the lofty hill;
Anon, slow rising, beams the orb of day,
Slow melt the shadowy mists, and fade away;
The vapours vanish at the view of morn,
And hang in dew-drops on the glistening thorn;
The prospect opens on the pilgrim’s sight,
And hills, and vales, and woods, reflect the beam of light.
O thou! the mistress of my future days,
Accept thy minstrel’s retrospective lays;
To whom the minstrel and the lyre belong,
Accept, ARISTE, Memory’s pensive song!
For Memory on thine image loves to hang,
Heave the sad sigh, and point the piercing pang.
Of long-past days I sing, ere yet I knew
Or grief and care, or happiness and you;
Ere yet my infant bosom learnt to prove
The pangs of absence, and the hopes of love.
So when the pilgrim, on his journey bent,
With upward toil creeps on the steep ascent;
Ere yet his feet the destin’d height attain,
Oft will he pause, and gaze the journey’d plain;
Oft pause again, the valley to survey,
Where food or slumber sooth’d his wand’ring way.
ALSTON! twelve years, in various business fled,
Have wing’d their restless flight o’er BION’s head;
Twelve years have taught his opening mind to know
The smiles of pleasure, and the frowns of woe;
Since in thy vale, beneath the master’s rule,
He roam’d an inmate of the village school:
Yet still will memory’s busy eye retrace
Each well-known vestige of the oft-trod place;
Each wonted haunt, each scene of youthful joy,
Where merriment has cheer’d the careless boy:
Well pleas’d will memory still the spot survey,
Where once he triumph’d in the infant play,
Without one care where every morn he rose,
Where every evening sunk to calm repose.
Large was the mansion, fall’n by varying fate
From lordly grandeur and manorial state;
Where once the manor’s lord supreme had rule,
Now reign’d the master of the village school:
No more was heard around, at earliest morn,
The echoing clangor of the huntsman’s horn;
No more the eager hounds, with deep’ning cry,
Yell’d in the exulting hope of pastime nigh;
The squire no more obey’d the morning call,
Nor favourite spaniels fill’d the sportsman’s hall;
For he, the last descendant of his race,
Slept with his fathers, and forgot the chace.
Fall’n was the mansion: o’er the village poor
The lordly landlord tyrannized no more;
For now, in petty greatness o’er the school,
The mighty master held despotic rule:
With trembling silence all his deeds we saw,
His look a mandate, and his word a law;
Severe his voice, severely grave his mien,
And wond’rous strict he was, and wond’rous wise, I ween.
Even now, thro’ many a long long year, I trace
The hour when first in awe I view�
�d his face;
Even now recall my entrance at the dome,
’Twas the first day I ever left my home!
Years intervening have not worn away
The deep remembrance of that distant day;
Effac’d the vestige of my earliest fears,
A mother’s fondness, and a mother’s tears;
When close she prest me to her sorrowing heart,
As loath as even I myself to part.
But time to youthful sorrow yields relief,
Each various object weans the child from grief:
Like April showers the tears of youth descend,
Sudden they fall, and suddenly they end;
Serener pleasure gilds the following hour,
As brighter gleams the sun when past the April shower.
Methinks ev’n now the interview I see,
Recall the mistress’ smile, the master’s glee:
Much of my future happiness they said,
Much of the easy life the scholars led;
Of spacious play-ground, and of wholsome air,
The best instruction, and the tenderest care;
And when I follow’d from the garden door
My father, ‘till with tears I saw no more,
How civilly they eas’d my parting pain,
And never spake so civilly again!
Why loves the soul on earlier years to dwell,
When memory spreads around her saddening spell;
When discontent, with sullen gloom o’ercast,
Loaths at the present, and prefers the past?
Why calls reflection to my pensive view
Each trifling act of infancy anew —
Each trifling act with pleasure pondering o’er,
Even at the time when trifles please no more!
Day follows day, yet leaves no trace behind,
When one sole thought engrosses all the mind;
When anxious reason claims her painful sway,
And for to-morrow’s prospect glooms to-day!
Ill fares the wanderer in this vale of life,
When each new stage affords succeeding strife;
In every stage he feels supremely curst,
Yet still the present evil seems the worst:
On as he goes the vision’d prospect flies,
And, grasping still at bliss, unblest at last he dies.
Yet is remembrance sweet; though well I know
The days of childhood are but days of woe;
Some rude restraint, some petty tyrant sours
The tranquil calm of childhood’s easy hours;
Some trifling fault committed calls the tear,
Some trifling task neglected prompts to fear:
Yet is it sweet to call to mind the hour,
Ere searching reason gain’d her saddening power;
Ere future prospects could the soul distress,
When even ignorance was happiness.
Such was my state in those remember’d years,
When one small acre bounded all my fears:
And even now with pleasure I recall
The tapestry’d school, the bright-brown boarded hall;
The murmuring brook, that every morning saw
The due observance of the cleanly law;
The walnuts, where, when favour would allow,
Full oft I wont to search each well-stript bough;
The crab-tree, whence we hid the secret hoard,
With roasted crabs to deck the wintry board.
These trifling pastimes then my soul possest,
These trifling objects still remain imprest:
So when, with unskill’d hand, the rustic hind
Carves the rude legend on the growing rind,
In after years the peasant lives to see
The expanded legend grow as grows the tree.
Though every winter’s desolating sway
Shake the hoarse grove, and sweep the leaves away;
Deep in its trunk the legend still will last,
Defy the storm, and brave the wintry blast.
Whilst letter’d travellers delight to roam
The time-torn temple and demolish’d dome;
Stray with the Arab o’er the wreck of time,
Where erst Palmyra’s towers arose sublime;
Or mark the lazy Turk’s lethargic pride,
And Grecian slavery on Ilyssus’ side:
Oh! be it mine to flee from empire’s strife,
And mark the changes of domestic life;
See the fall’n scenes where once I bore my part,
Where every change of fortune strikes the heart;
As when the merry bells’ responsive sound
Proclaim the news of victory around;
When eager patriots fly the news to spread
Of glorious conquest, and of thousands dead;
All feel the mighty glow of victor joy,
Exult in blood, and triumph to destroy:
But if extended on the gory plain,
And, snatch’d in conquest, some lov’d friend be slain,
Affection’s tears will dim the sorrowing eye,
And suffering nature grieve that one should die.
Oft have my footsteps roam’d the sacred spot,
Where heroes, kings, and minstrels, sleep forgot;
Oft traced the mouldering castle’s ivy’d wall,
Or ruin’d convent tottering to its fall;
Whilst sad reflection lov’d the solemn gloom,
Paus’d o’er the pile, and ponder’d on the tomb:
Yet never had my bosom felt such pain
As, ALSTON, when I saw thy scenes again!
For every long-lost pleasure rush’d to view,
For every long-past sorrow rose anew;
Where whilome all were friends, I stood alone,
Unknowing all I saw, of all I saw unknown.
ALSTON! no pilgrim ever crept around
With more emotion Sion’s sacred ground,
Than fill’d my heart as slow I saunter’d o’er
Those fields my infant steps had trod of yore;
Where I had loiter’d out the summer hour,
Chas’d the gay butterfly, and cull’d the flower;
Sought the swift arrow’s erring course to trace,
Or with mine equals vied amid the chace.
Cold was the morn, and bleak the wintry blast
Howl’d o’er the meadow, when I view’d thee last;
My bosom bounded, as I wander’d round
Each well-known field, each long-remember’d ground.
I saw the church where I had slept away
The tedious service of the summer-day;
Or, listening sad to all the preacher told,
In winter wak’d, and shiver’d with the cold;
And, as I pass’d along the well-trod way,
Where whilome two by two we walk’d to pray,
I saw the garden ground as usual rail’d,
A fence, to fetch my ball, I oft had scal’d:
Oh! it recall’d a thousand scenes to view,
A thousand joys to which I long had bid adieu.
Silent and sad the scene: I heard no more
Mirth’s honest cry, and childhood’s cheerful roar,
No longer echo’d round the shout of glee —
It seem’d as tho’ the world were chang’d, like me!
There, where my little hands were wont to rear
With pride the earliest sallad of the year;
Where never idle weed to grow was seen,
There the rank nettle rear’d its head obscene.
I too have felt the hand of fate severe —
In those calm days I never knew to fear;
No future views alarm’d my gloomy breast,
No anxious pangs my sickening soul possest;
No grief consum’d me, for I did not know
Increase of reason was increase of woe.
Silent and sad awhile I
paus’d, to gaze
On the fall’n dwelling of my earlier days;
Long dwelt the eye on each remember’d spot,
Each long-left scene, long left, but not forgot:
Once more my soul delighted to survey
The brook that murmured on its wonted way;
Obedient to the master’s dread commands,
Where every morn we wash’d our face and hands;
Where, when the tempest raged along the air,
I wont to rear the dam with eager care;
And eft and aye return’d with joy to find
The neighbouring orchard’s fruit shook down by warring wind.
How art thou chang’d! at first the stately pile,
Where pride, and pomp, and pleasure, wont to smile,
Lord of the manor, where the jovial squire
Call’d all his tenants round the crackling fire;
Where, whilst the glow of fame o’erspread his face,
He told his ancient exploits in the chace;
And, proud his rival sportsmen to surpass,
He lit again the pipe, and fill’d again the glass.
Past is thy day of glory: past the day
When here the man of learning held his sway:
No more, when howl the wintry storms around,
Within thy hall is heard the mirthful sound;
No more disport around the infant crew,
And high in health the mimic game pursue;
No more to strike the well-aim’d ball delight,
Or rear aloft with joy the buoyant kite.
True, thou art fallen: thy day of glory past,
Long may thy day of honest comfort last!
Long may the farmer from his toil retire
To joys domestic round thy evening fire;
Where boisterous riot once supreme has reign’d,
Where discipline his sway severe maintain’d;
May heaven the industrious farmer’s labour bless,
And crown his honest toil with happiness.
Seat of my earlier, happier years, farewell!
Thy memory still in Bion’s breast shall dwell:
Still as he journeys life’s rough road along,