TREAD light this haunted grove of pleasure,
And list the fall of that dying measure;
O breathe not, stir not foot or hand-
There are visitants here from the Fairy land!
For such a sweet and melting strain
Was never framed in this world of pain;
It had breathings of ecstasy and bliss
Of a happier, holier sphere than this!
And the grey hairs creep upon my brow;
For I know full well, from a thrilling smart
And a joy that quivers through my heart,
That this most sweet and comely boy,
With his pipe and his looks of sunny joy,
Is either the prince of the land unseen,
The child of my loved Fairy Queen,
Or cherub sent from a region higher,
The son of Apollo the king of the lyre!
Hail lovely thing! Ah might it be
That I were again such a being as thee,
With my pipe and my plaid in the wild green wood,
If thou art indeed of flesh and of blood!
But be thou a child of this world of strife,
Or a stranger come from the land of life,
Where the day of glory closes never,
And the harp and the song prevail for ever,
Still, vision fair, I long to be
A thing as holy and pure as thee.
Is it a dream or fairy trance,
This scene of grandeur and wild romance?
That chrystal pool with its sounding linn,
And the lovely vista far within,
The weeping birch and the poplar tall,
And the minstrel boy, the loveliest of all,
Thus singing his lay to the waterfall ?
It is no vision of aught to be,
But a wild and splendid reality.
Then here let me linger, enwrapt, alone,
And think of the days that are past and gone—
Days of brightness, but fled as soon
As the bow from the cloud in the afternoon
Gone like the purpled morning ray ·
Gone like the blink of a winter day
Gone like the strain of ravishing joy,
Late poured from the pipe of the minstrel
That has left no trace in its airy flight,
Though the leaves were dancing with delight;
Gone like the swallow far over the main,
But never like her to return again!
Yes, there was a time with memory twined, (But time has left it afar behind),
When I, like thee, on a summer day
Would fling my bonnet and plaid away,
And toil at the leap, the race, or the stone,
With none to beat but myself alone.
And then would I raise my tiny lay
And lilt the songs of a former day;
Till I believed that over the fell
The fairies peeped from the heather bell;
That the lamb, so fraught with fond regard,
Had ceased to nibble the flowery sward;
That the plover came nigh with his corslet brown,
And the moorcock showed his scarlet crown;
That I even beheld, with reverence due,
The goss-hawk droop his pinion blue,
And the tear in the eye of the good curlew :
These things I trowed in my ecstasy,
So they were the same as truth to me;
And I decided, with placid brow,
That at the leap, the race, or the throw,
Or tuneful lay of the greenwood glen,
I was the chief of the sons of men.
Well, time flew on; and this conceit,
This high resolve not to be beat,
So urged me on these sports to head,
Though rarely the first, I had no dread
With all the first my skill to try,
And little lose in the contest high.
-Without resolve that mocks controul,
A conscious energy of soul
That views no height to human skill,
Man never excelled and never will.
Forgive, dear boy, this barren theme,
But be this phrase thy apothegm
Better in the first race contend,
Than all that follows to transcend.
But thou shalt rise, full well I know,
If health still beam on thy comely brow;
For thou hast a hand to lead thee on
That stands unequalled and alone,
While thy old monitor had none
None, save the song of the rural hind,
The bleating flocks, and the wailing wind,
The wildered glen with its gloomy pall,
The cliff, and the cairn, and the waterfall,
The towering clouds of ghastly form,
And the voice that spoke in the thunder storm!
there was another a fervid flame, Dear of remembrance, and dear of name, With a thousand pains and pleasures blent, But scarcely a thing of this element; And thou shalt know it some time hence
To thy sweet and thy hard experience;
And thou shalt heave the burning sigh,
And be its slave as well as I.
Much do I owe to its sacred sway,
For he who sends thee this simple lay,
In his remote and green alcove
Was the pupil of NATURE and of LOVE.
With these and ART, shalt thou excel:
Dear Minstrel Boy! a while farewell.
Mount-Benger, June 14, 1828.
DECEMBER 31, 1827.-EVENING.
A day of cloudy grandeur,-o'er the main
Rolling its stormy volumes from the west,
That carrying eastward on their fiery breast
The vivid glow of many an evening stain,
Reflected from the ocean edge again
In faintly ruddy belt,—while all the rest
Over the heavens with lighter hue imprest,
Or from dark skirts scattering the flying rain,-
In splendour and in storm dismiss the year:
Emblem of Earth's disordered pageants through
Its course, oft-times their glory by a tear
Succeeded, nor retaining long one view;
Yet through these rending clouds, serene and clear
Heaven's vistas open,—through Time's shadows too!
R. M.
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