Or shall I sing of happy hours, Number'd by opening and by closing flowers? Of smiles, and sighs that give no pain, And seem as they were heav'd in vain- Blent with the whisper of the vine, And the pure sweetness of the jessamine : What is it those sighs confess? Idle are they, as I guess, And yet they tell, all is not well :— Then away to the meadows, where April's swift shadows Passing gleams of restless mirth— Still bequeath a blessing after— Bliss, if bliss below may be, Such themes I sang—and such I fain would sing, When the pure snow-drops couch beneath the snow, And tell it to the dilatory blast. Yet will I hail the sunbeam as it flies- THOUGHTS. Он, sacred Freedom! thou that art so fair, That all, who once have seen thee, love thee ever— Thou apparition, that hast been so rare That wise men say thou wert embodied never; And learned sages, doating on their lore, Say thou hast been, and never shalt be more. When Reason-that whate'er it is, must be- Made human choice an everlasting strife; Then every Passion, native to the hour, Yet some there are, and some that still have been, The fate that whirls around the restless wheel Some to the stars ascribe the inborn evil, Some to the Gods, and others to the devil, To live without a living soul To feel the spirit daily pining, Of mindless chance, itself consigning Such is the penance, and the meed Of thoughts that, boasting to be free, Perchance they roam in Duty's sacred name, Their duty still is Duty to deny, To burst her bonds and cast her cords away: As some turn rebels for pure loyalty, And some, to save the soul, the body slay: If any law they own, that law decrees, That sovereign right is born of each man's phantasies. 'Twere woe to tell what lamentable wreck Such dreams may bring upon the public weal, If once restraint be broken from the neck Of such as grossly think, and fiercely feel, In whom the noble parts by Nature lent, Are sway'd and biass'd from their kindly bent. Thralls of the world, to whom the world affords The master of a slave is never free, But still himself the slave of sensual fear :Woe to mankind-for ever doom'd to be The slaves of slaves. The only freeedom here Lives in the spirit that disowns the bands, And dares refuse imperious Fate's commands. From age to age, beneath the base control * |