1789=1847. Richard Henry Wilde was a native of Ireland but was brought to this country when a child of nine. His father died in 1802 and the widowed mother took up her residence in Augusta, Georgia. He studied law and became a successful practitioner. He was Attorney-General of the State, and served also in the Legislature and in Congress. He spent the years 1834-40 in Europe studying chiefly Italian literature; in his researches he discovered some old documents relating to Dante and a portrait of him painted by Giotto on a wall which had become covered over with whitewash. On his return to America he settled in New Orleans and became professor of Law in the University of Louisiana. He died there of yellow fever. He began an epic poem, suggested by the life and adventures of his brother, James Wilde, in the Seminole war. But it was never finished: all that remains of it now is the fine lyric, “My Life is Like the Summer Rose.” This song was translated by Anthony Barclay into Greek and announced to be a newly discovered ode of Alcaeus. This claim was soon disproved by the scholars, and to Mr. Wilde WORKS.Conjectures and Researches concerning the Love, Madness, and Imprisonment of Tasso, (containing translations of poems.) MY LIFE IS LIKE THE SUMMER ROSE.My life is like the summer rose, That opens to the morning sky, And ere the shades of evening close, Is scattered on the ground to die; Yet on that rose’s humble bed The sweetest dews of night are shed As though she wept such waste to see; But none shall weep a tear for me! My life is like the autumn leaf Which trembles in the moon’s pale ray, Its hold is frail, its date is brief, Restless, and soon to pass away; Yet when that leaf shall fall and fade, The parent tree will mourn its shade, The wind bewail the leafless tree; But none shall breathe a sigh for me! My life is like the prints which feet Have left on Tampa’s desert strand, Soon as the rising tide shall beat Their trace will vanish from the sand; Yet still as grieving to efface All vestige of the human race, On that lone shore loud moans the sea; But none, alas! shall mourn for me! |