Young Gentleman

See the sky glows!—how fierce the beams of noon Pour their wide splendours o’er the yellow hill! But rosy hours fly fast;—dim Autumn soon Shall, from her drizzling urn, the gay green valley fill.

Pale billows then shall cast a sickly gleam Through the thin umbrage of the rifled groves; Whose rustling leaves, thick show’ring, swell the stream, That drenches the ’lorn mead, and widens as it roves.

With many a rising sigh for pleasures flown We view the destin’d ravage, cold, and drear; But let a few frore months be past and gone, And the sweet hour of prime shall renovate the year.

But ah! no minstrel of the merry morn Shall wake to joy the icy sleep of Age; No purple wreaths the palsied brow adorn, Or chace of pain and death the desolate presage.

Like broken lustres in the golden West, Now auburn tints gleam sunny in thy hair; And Youth’s warm spirit, dancing in thy breast, Looks through thy shining eyes, and animates thy air.

Seize the awaken’d-moments—for they speed Thy light gay bark to Age’s torpid wave; And with th’ exalted thought, the generous deed, Quick, from Oblivion’s gulph, thy rescu’d memory save!

The Man, whose name on virtuous lips shall dwell, Disdains to think the mortal lot severe, Nor heeds the darkness of the funeral cell; Fame, and the Summer-Morn shall gild his passage there!