Turn to the few in Ida's early throng, Whose souls disdain not to condemn the wrong; None dare to raise the sterner voice of truth, beside; "Tis not enough, with other sons of power, To gleam the lambent meteor of an hour; To swell some peerage page in feeble pride, With long-drawn names that grace no page Then share with titled crowds the common lot— In life just gazed at, in the grave forgot; While nought divides thee from the vulgar dead, Except the dull, cold stone that hides thy head, The mouldering 'scutcheon, or the herald's roll, That well-emblazoned but neglected scroll, Where lords, unhonored, in the tomb may find One spot, to leave a worthless name behind. There sleep, unnoticed as the gloomy vaults That veil their dust, their follies, and their faults, A race with old armorial lists o'erspread,. In records destined never to be read. Fain would I view thee, with prophetic eyes, Turn to the annals of a former day, Bright are the deeds thine earlier sires display. The hour draws nigh, a few brief days will close, To me, this little scene of joys and woes; Each knell of Time now warns me to resign Shades where Hope, Peace, and Friendship all were mine Dorset, farewell! I will not ask one part Since chance has thrown us in the self-same sphere, For me, in future, neither friend nor foe, No more, as once, in social hours rejoice, Or hear, unless in crowds, thy well-known voice. To veil those feelings which perchance it ought, ON LEAVING NEWSTEAD ABBEY. THROUGH thy battlements, Newstead, the hollow winds whistle; Thou, the hall of my fathers, art gone to decay; In thy once smiling garden, the hemlock and thistle Have choked up the rose which late bloomed in the way. Of the mail-covered Barons, who proudly to battle No more doth old Robert, with harp-stringing numbers, Raise a flame in the breast for the war-laurell'd wreath; Near Askalon's towers, John of Horistan slumbers, Unnerved is the hand of his minstrel by death. Paul and Hubert, too, sleep in the valley of Cressy; For the safety of Edward and England they fell: My fathers! the tears of your country redress ye; How you fought, how you died, still her annals can tell. On Marston, with Rupert, 'gainst traitors contending, Four brothers enriched with their blood the bleak field; For the rights of a monarch their country defending, Till death their attachment to royalty sealed. Shades of heroes, farewell! your descendant, departing Though a tear dim his eye at this sad separation, That fame, and that memory still will he cherish; He vows that he ne'er will disgrace your renown; Like you will he live, or like you will he perish; When decayed, may he mingle his dust with your own. ON A DISTANT VIEW OF THE VILLAGE AND SCHOOL OF HARROW ON THE HILL. YE scenes of my childhood, whose loved recollection Einbitters the present, compared with the past; Where science first dawned on the powers of reflection, And friendships were formed too romantic to last; Where fancy yet joys to retrace the resemblance |