Man may rejoice that thy sweet influence hallows
His intercourse with all he loves—in heaven;
But canst thou make him love his sordid fellows,
Nor mix with them untainted by their leaven?
How can he not grow cautious, cold, and callous,
When he forgives to seventy times seven,
And still-repeated wrongs, unwept for, harden
The heart that's never sued nor sought to pardon?
Reserve's cold breath has chilled each warmer feeling,
Ingratitude has frozen up his blood,
Unjust neglect has pierced him past all healing,
And scarred a heart that panted to do good;
Slowly, but surely, has distrust been steeling
His mind, much wrong'd, and little understood.
Would charity unseal affection's fountain?
Alas! 'tis crushed beneath a marble mountain.
Yet the belief that he was loved by other
Could root and hurl that mountain in the sea,
Oblivion's depth the height of ill would smother,
And all forgiven, all forgotten be;
Man then could love his once injurious brother
With such a love as none can give but he :
The sun of love, and that alone, has power
To bring to bright perfection love's sweet flower.
Soft rains, and zephyrs, and warm noons can vanquish
The stubborn tyranny of winter's frost;
Once more the smiling vallies cease to languish,
Drest out in fresher beauties than they lost:
So springs with gladness from its bed of anguish
The heart that loved not, when reviled and crost,
For, though case-hardened by ill-usage, often
Love's sunny smile the rockiest heart will soften.
TO THE UNDYING SPIRIT OF FREDERICK KLOPSTOCK.
(The allusions herein are to expressions contained in his letters.)
IMMORTAL MIND, so bright with beautiful thought,
And robed so fair in loveliest sympathy,
"Thou Christian," by thy "guardian angel" taught
The master-touches of all melody!
Am not I "one of those" unworthy, sought
By thy rapt soul with "love's prospective eye?" I feel I love thee, "brother," as I ought;
Look down and love me too, where'er thou art: I too am cherish'd by as kind a heart As beat in "gentle Cidli's" breast divine, I too can bless the hand which made her mine; And within me congenial feelings dart, Whether to glow, or thrill, or hope, or melt, My soul attuned to thine can feel as thou hast felt.
I THOUGHT him still sincere,
I hoped he loved me yet;
My poor heart pants with harrowing fear:
O canst thou thus forget?
I gazed into his face,
And scann'd his features o'er,
And there was still each manly grace
That won my love before;
But coldly looked those eyes
Which oft had thrill'd my breast,
He was too great, too rich, too wise,
To make me his confest.
Couldst thou know what I felt
To see thee light and gay,
Thy frozen heart would warm and melt,
And weep its ice away:
Yes, I can tell of tears
These eyes for thee have shed,
In daily, nightly, hourly prayers
For blessings on thy head.
I name thee not, through shame
That truth should fade and flee:
Fear not thy love, thy vows, thy name
Are known to none but me.
Farewell! 't is mine to prove
Of blighted hopes the pain;
But, O believe, I ne'er can love,
As I have loved, again:
Farewell! 'tis thine to change,
Forget, be false, be free;
But know, wherever thou shalt range,
That none can love like me.
THE STAMMERER'S COMPLAINT.
AH! think it not a light calamity
To be denied free converse with my kind,
To be debarred from man's true attribute,
The proper, glorious privilege of speech.
Hast ever seen an eagle chain'd to earth?
A restless panther in his cage immured?
A swift trout by the wily fisher check'd?
A wild bird hopeless strain its broken wing?
Hast ever felt, at the dark dead of night,
Some undefined and horrid incubus
Press down the very soul, and paralyze
The limbs in their imaginary flight
From shadowy terrors in unhallowed sleep?
Hast ever known the sudden icy chill
Of dreary disappointment, as it dashes
The sweet cup of anticipated bliss
From the parched lips of long-enduring hope?
Then thou canst picture-ay, in sober truth,
In real, unexaggerated truth-
The constant, galling, festering chain, that binds
Captive my mute interpreter of thought;
The seal of lead enstamp'd upon my lips,
The load of iron on my labouring chest,
The mocking demon that at every step
Haunts me, and spurns me on-to burst with silence! Oh! 'tis a sore affliction to restrain,
From mere necessity, the glowing thought;
To feel the fluent cataract of speech
Check'd by some wintry spell, and frozen up,
Just as it's leaping from the precipice!
To be the butt of wordy captious fools,
And see the sneering self-complacent smile
Of victory on their lips, when I might prove
(But for some little word I dare not utter),
That innate truth is not a specious lie:
To hear foul slander blast an honour'd name,
Yet breathe no fact to drive the fiend away:
To mark neglected virtue in the dust,
Yet have no word to pity or console:
To feel just indignation swell my breast,
Yet know the fountain of my wrath is sealed:
To see my fellow-mortals hurrying on
Down the steep cliff of crime, down to perdition,
Yet have no voice to warn-no voice to win!
"Tis to be mortified in every point, Baffled at every turn of life, for want Of that most common privilege of man, The merest drug of gorged society, Words-windy words.
And is it not, in truth,
A poison'd sting in every social joy,
A thorn that rankles in the writhing flesh,
A drop of gall in each domestic sweet,
An irritating petty misery,
That I can never look on one I love,
And speak the fullness of my burning thoughts?
That I can never with unmingled joy
Meet a long-loved and long-expected friend,
Because I feel, but cannot vent my feelings;
Because I know I ought, but must not speak:
Because I mark his quick impatient eye,
Striving in kindness to anticipate
The word of welcome strangled in its birth!
Is it not sorrow, while I truly love
Sweet social converse, to be forced to shun
The happy circle, from a nervous sense,
An agonizing, poignant consciousness,
That I must stand aloof, nor mingle with
The wise and good, in rational argument,
The young in brilliant quickness of reply,
Friendship's ingenuous interchange of mind,
Affection's open-hearted sympathies,
But feel myself an isolated being,
A very wilderness of widow'd thought!
Ay, 'tis a bitter thing; and not less bitter
Because it is not reckoned in the ills,
"The thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to;"
Yet the full ocean is but countless drops,
And misery is an aggregate of tears,
And life, replete with small annoyances,
Is but one long-protracted scene of sorrow.
I scarce would wonder if a godless man,
(I name not him whose hope is heavenward,)
A man, whom lying vanities hath scathed
And harden'd from all fear-if such an one,
By this tyrannical Argus goaded on,
Were to be wearied of his very life,
And daily, hourly foiled in social converse,
By the slow simmering of disappointment,
Become a sour'd and apathetic being,
Were to feel rapture at the approach of death,
And long for his dark hope-annihilation.
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