Remembrance

Remembrance, while thy precious beam Shines beauteous on my early life, How kind a refuge dost thou seem From worn Existence’ present dream, Her weariness, her doubts and strife!

Dim are the mists that Time has thrown On years which fled so fast away; But, in thy humid lustre gone, They leave those years, for ever flown, To rise all lovely in thy ray.

When June’s red dawn had streak’d the plains, And bade the kindling Orient throw Her blushes on these Choral Fanes, They shone, in her slant rosy stains, Fairer than in the noontide glow.

Then with what fond delight I hail’d The dawn, which must those eyes unclose That o’er my destiny prevail’d, Each joy increas’d, each grief repell’d, Which in my youthful bosom rose!

E’en to exist was ecstacy, To feel the sun, to breathe the gale; Charm’d to expect, to hear, to see Friends, whose dear smiles were more to me Than all Peruvian mountains veil!

More rosy than the morn of June Those happy days, now far removed; And sweeter than the linnet’s tune, That gaily choir’d its liquid sun, The accents of the lips I loved!

But Earth, deprived, no longer seems In fair ideal light to glow; Pale as the ice-incrusted streams Beneath the cold moon’s trembling gleams, The brightest scene she now can show.

E’en tho’ the gay consummate year Reveal, in her luxuriant pride, All that her gorgeous livery wear, Hills, dales, and woods, reflected fair, In lake and river’s glassy tide.

Low in the chambers of the grave Stretch’d are those forms, in iron sleep, Who to these scenes their magic gave; Whom vows, nor tears, nor prayers could save, All, all I loved, and all I weep!

Where, Lichfield, the unrivall’d sway Brave ANDRE once assign’d to thee? He bade thee thy spired head display Amid thy vales, and proudly say,— I am, and there is none but me!

Enchantress, broken is thy spell, Snapt thy charm’d wand, eclips’d thy star; And to the dark and narrow cell The Spirit points, here wont to dwell, And spread his purple beams afar.

Yes, the fair Spirit of delight, So long who made these bowers his home! Now sad he folds his pinions bright, And, pondering the sepulchral blight, Sits mute and sorrowing on the tomb;

Griev’d while I rove each well-known street, And, with faint step, the fields explore; Lost, lost the vital hope to greet The friends, whom there I used to meet, And whom, alas! I meet no more.

No more, HONORA, shall I see Thy speaking eyes, that cheer’d my soul! SAVILLE, the gates of harmony Eternally were closed to me, When thou didst pass the Mortal Goal!

No due return of months and years Shall bring you, ever-loved, again; Mine are feign’d smiles and genuine tears, The darken’d hopes, the torpid fears, And all Privation’s lonely pain.

Yet O! since Death’s avoidless hour, Remembrance! may extinguish thee, Beyond the grave disarm thy power Terrestrial blessings to restore, Which shone the mind’s soft sun to me.

Lest that should be, with all its gloom, Life will I cherish to the last, And grateful for its day of bloom, Turn from the shadow of the tomb, To muse and to recall the past.