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Away, away! delusive power,
Thou shalt not haunt my coming hour;
Unless, indeed, without thy wings.

Seat of my youth! thy distant spire
Recalls each scene of joy;
My bosom glows with former fire,
In mind again a boy.

Thy grove of elms, thy verdant hill,
Thy every path delights me still,

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Each flower a double fragrance flings;
Again, as once, in converse gay,
Each dear associate seems to say,
'Friendship is Love without his wings!' 50

My Lycus! wherefore dost thou weep?
Thy falling tears restrain;
Affection for a time may sleep,

But, oh, 't will wake again.

Think, think, my friend, when next we meet, Our long-wish'd interview, how sweet!

From this my hope of rapture springs; While youthful hearts thus fondly swell, Absence, my friend, can only tell, 'Friendship is Love without his wings!' 60

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Let bigots rear a gloomy fane,

Let superstition hail the pile,
Let priests, to spread their sable reign,
With tales of mystic rites beguile.

Shall man confine his Maker's sway

To Gothic domes of mouldering stone? Thy temple is the face of day;

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Earth, ocean, heaven, thy boundless throne.

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space;

Who calm'st the elemental war,

Whose hand from pole to pole I trace:

Thou, who in wisdom placed me here,
Who, when thou wilt, canst take me
hence,

Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere,
Extend to me thy wide defence.

To Thee, my God, to thee I call!
Whatever weal or woe betide,
By thy command I rise or fall,
In thy protection I confide.

If, when this dust to dust 's restored,
My soul shall float on airy wing,
How shall thy glorious name adored
Inspire her feeble voice to sing!

But, if this fleeting spirit share

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TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ.
Nil ego contulerim jucundo sanus amico. — HORACE.

DEAR LONG, in this sequester'd scene,
While all around in slumber lie,
The joyous days which ours have been
Come rolling fresh on Fancy's eye;
Thus if amidst the gathering storm,
While clouds the darken'd noon deform,
Yon heaven assumes a varied glow,
I hail the sky's celestial bow

Which spreads the sign of future peace
And bids the war of tempests cease.
Ah! though the present brings but pain,
I think those days may come again;

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Or if, in melancholy mood,

Some lurking envious fear intrude,
To check my bosom's fondest thought,
And interrupt the golden dream,
I crush the fiend with malice fraught,
And still indulge my wonted theme.
Although we ne'er again can trace,

In Granta's vale, the pedant's lore; Nor through the groves of Ida chase Our raptured visions as before; Though Youth has flown on rosy pinion, And Manhood claims his stern dominion Age will not every hope destroy, But yield some hours of sober joy.

Yes, I will hope that Time's broad wing
Will shed around some dews of spring:
But if his scythe must sweep the flowers
Which bloom among the fairy bowers,
Where smiling Youth delights to dwell
And hearts with early rapture swell;
If frowning Age, with cold control,
Confines the current of the soul,
Congeals the tear of Pity's eye,
Or checks the sympathetic sigh,
Or hears unmoved misfortune's groan,
And bids me feel for self alone;
Oh, may my bosom never learn

To soothe its wonted heedless flow;
Still, still despise the censor stern,
But ne'er forget another's woe.
Yes, as you knew me in the days
O'er which Remembrance yet delays,
Still may I rove, untutor'd, wild,
And even in age at heart a child.

Though now on airy visions borne, To you my soul is still the same. Oft has it been my fate to mourn,

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And all my former joys are tame. But, hence! ye hours of sable hue! Your frowns are gone, my sorrows o'er: By every bliss my childhood knew,

I'll think upon your shade no more. Thus, when the whirlwind's rage is past, And caves their sullen roar enclose, We heed no more the wintry blast, When lull'd by zephyr to repose.

Full often has my infant Muse

Attuned to love her languid lyre; But now without a theme to choose, The strains in stolen sighs expire. My youthful nymphs, alas! are flown; E- is a wife, and C a mother,

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And Carolina sighs alone,

And Mary's given to another;
And Cora's eye which roll'd on me,
Can now no more my love recall:

In truth, dear LONG, 't was time to flee;
For Cora's eye will shine on all.
And though the sun, with genial rays,
His beams alike to all displays,
And every lady's eye's a sun,
These last should be confined to one.
The soul's meridian don't become her,
Whose sun displays a general summer!
Thus faint is every former flame,
And passion's self is now a name.
As, when the ebbing flames are low,

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The aid, which once improved their light

And bade them burn with fiercer glow, Now quenches all their sparks in night; Thus has it been with passion's fires,

As many a boy and girl remembers, While all the force of love expires,

Extinguish'd with the dying embers.

But now, dear LONG, 't is midnight's noon,
And clouds obscure the watery moon,
Whose beauties I shall not rehearse,
Described in every stripling's verse;
For why should I the path go o'er
Which every bard has trod before?
Yet ere yon silver lamp of night

Has thrice perform'd her stated round, Has thrice retraced her path of light,

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And chased away the gloom profound, I trust that we, my gentle friend, Shall see her rolling orbit wend Above the dear-loved peaceful seat Which once contain'd our youth's retreat; And then with those our childhood knew, We'll mingle in the festive crew; While many a tale of former day Shall wing the laughing hours away, And all the flow of souls shall pour The sacred intellectual shower, Nor cease till Luna's waning horn Scarce glimmers through the mist of morn.

TO A LADY

[Mrs. Chaworth Musters, the 'Mary' of many poems.]

OH! had my fate been join'd with thine,

As once this pledge appear'd a token,

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[The 'Mary' of this poem is not Mrs. Chaworth Musters, nor is it his distant cousin Mary Duff, but the daughter of James Robertson, of the farmhouse of Ballatrich on Deeside.]

WHEN I roved a young Highlander o'er the dark heath,

And climb'd thy steep summit, oh Morven of snow!

To gaze on the torrent that thunder'd beneath,

Or the mist of the tempest that gather'd below,

Untutor❜d by science, a stranger to fear, And rude as the rocks where my infancy grew,

No feeling, save one, to my bosom was dear; Need I say, my sweet Mary, 't was centred in you ?

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