For all my humble fame, to him alone, The praise is due, who made that fame my own. These young effusions of my early days, To him my Muse her noblest strain would give, Where all are hastening to the dread abode, The silent shaft, which goads the guilty wretch Conscience that sting, that shaft to him supplies- [P. on V. Occasions.] i. The song might perish, but the theme must live. [Hours of Idleness.] By every son of grateful IDA blest, It finds an echo in each youthful breast; IDA! not yet exhausted is the theme, IDA! still o'er thy hills in joy preside, Tell me, ye hoary few, who glide along, The feeble Veterans of some former throng, 370 380 Whose friends, like Autumn leaves by tempests whirl'd, Are swept for ever from this busy world; Revolve the fleeting moments of your youth, 390 As those where Youth her garland twin'd for you? 400 You turn with faltering hand life's varied page, But bless the scroll which fairer words adorn, Trac'd by the rosy finger of the Morn; When Friendship bow'd before the shrine of truth, And Love, without his pinion,1 smil'd on Youth. i. — his venom'd tooth.-[Hours of Idleness.] 410 1. "L'Amitié est l'Amour sans ailes," is a French proverb. [See the lines so entitled, p. 220.j ANSWER TO A BEAUTIFUL POEM, WRITTEN BY MONTGOMERY, AUTHOR OF "THE WANDERER OF SWITZERLAND," ENTITLED "THE COMMON LOT."1 I. MONTGOMERY! true, the common lot Of mortals lies in Lethe's wave; Yet some shall never be forgot, Some shall exist beyond the grave. 2. "Unknown the region of his birth," 3. His joy or grief, his weal or woe, Perchance may 'scape the page of fame; Yet nations, now unborn, will know The record of his deathless name. ETC., 1. [Montgomery (James), 1771-1854, poet and hymn-writer, published Prison Amusements (1797), The Ocean; a Poem (1805), The Wanderer of Switzerland, and other Poems (1806), The West Indies, and other Poems (1810), Songs of Sion (1822), The Christian Psalmist (1825), The Pelican Island, and other Poems (1827), etc. (vide post, English Bards, etc., line 425, and note).]` 2. No particular hero is here alluded to. The exploits of Bayard, Nemours, Edward the Black Prince, and, in more modern times, the fame of Marlborough, Frederick the Great, Count Saxe, Charles of Sweden, etc., are familiar to every historical reader, but the exact places of their birth are known to a very small proportion of their admirers. 4. The Patriot's and the Poet's frame Must share the common tomb of all: Their glory will not sleep the same; That will arise, though Empires fall. 5. The lustre of a Beauty's eye Assumes the ghastly stare of death; The fair, the brave, the good must die, And sink the yawning grave beneath. 6. Once more, the speaking eye revives, For Petrarch's Laura still survives: She died, but ne'er will die again. 7. The rolling seasons pass away, And Time, untiring, waves his wing; Whilst honour's laurels ne'er decay, But bloom in fresh, unfading spring. 8. All, all must sleep in grim repose, Collected in the silent tomb; The old, the young, with friends and foes, Fest'ring alike in shrouds, consume. |