TO A YOUNG LADY,
Who asserted that no one above the Age of Thirty could be in Love.
youth's early dawn, can this gloomy opinion Possess my sweet friend, that the heart's so soon cold? Can she gravely maintain, that Love's mighty dominion No longer can sway us, when THIRTY is told?
Can she truly believe, that our life's dearest treasures, When their first tide is ended, no longer can flow? What is this but to say that the Spring has its pleasures, And that nought of delight can the Summer bestow?
When our THIRTY is told, if the flame of affection
No longer should dazzle with meteor rays,
Yet, sanction'd by reason, and prov'd by reflection,
It burns with as bright, but with steadier blaze.
And let her not think that 'tis Fancy's suggestion
That bids me against her my judgment uphold:
I once, young like her, might have laugh'd at the
question,
But now feel we can love, when our THIRTY is told.
ON THE LATE DUCHESS OF GORDON.
BY SIR BROOKE BOOTHBY, BART.
Is then the bright expansive spirit flown,
That wont to animate the admiring throng?
Does the fair theme of many a poet's song
Exist in pleasing memory alone?
GORDON is gone; and we our loss bemoan;
Remains there one, your frolic tribes among,
Who can, like her, the sprightly hour prolong?
Tell, ye gay circles, she to you was known!
Happy, when others happy she could make,
And none so well knew how! none knew so well The sweetest sympathies of life to wake,
And all its cares and sorrows to dispel!
High-minded, friendly, open, and sincere,
Ye kindred spirits, join the heart-drawn tear.
BY THE LATE JOHN LEYDEN, M. D.
HARK! how the merry lark's loud carols ring,
While wavering on the morning's dewy breath
The spider's silky web hangs o'er the heath;
Soaring, re-soaring high on quivering wing,
Her winding notes to sad remembrance bring
The moody musings of youth's earlier day,
When on the yellow curling moss I lay,
To hear the first wild music of the Spring,
Which o'er my soul a pleasing sadness threw :
Then heaving, as by stealth, a feeble sigh,
I mus'd how mortal man so soon must die,
And pensive view'd the sky so mildly blue.
Farewell, soft childish griefs, that but presage
The cheerless sorrows of maturer age.
In ridges green the peopled church-yard heaves,
Where musing slow, from human footsteps far,
I often pause to see some falling star
Twinkle by glimpses through the shivering leaves..
And there beneath the languid cypress shade
I love to mark a shapeless mossy stone
Of former days, that now remains alone,
And wish my head at last may there be laid :-
For there the peasant's sober steps shall pass,
When the slow sabbath-bells to church shall toll,
And wish a prayer in silence for my soul,
While his rude staff divides the rustling grass.
Than proud sepulchral pomp to me more dear
Shall be the peasant's sigh, the peasant's tear.
STILL on my soul that awful hour shall rise,
When, bounding home from the red-blossom'd heath,
Full in my view the corpse-like form of death
First burst in horror on mine infant eyes:
The sheeted bed of melancholy white,
The death-watch, and the dog's long dreary howl,
The ghostly terror lest the parted soul
Should glide before the shuddering watch at night; The sable bier, the wailing female cry
When slow the sad procession mov'd away I well remember, and for many a day I mus'd, and hop'd that I should never die. Vain hope! for death, since that tremendous hour, Has been the canker-worm of pleasure's flower.
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