DAY-DREAMS OF AN EXILE. V. Air " O Cara Memoria. " |
"I perceive that there is nothing better than that a man should rejoice in his own works, for that is his portion."—Eccles. iii. 22. Sigh thou not for a happier lot,
Happier may never be;
That thou hast esteem the best,
And given by the gods to thee.
And if thy tender hopes be slain,
Fear not, they soon shall bloom again;
For the gloomiest hour
Is fair to the flower
That heeds neither wind nor rain.
Fear of change from old to strange
Follows the fullest joy;
Labour wears us more than years;
Calms, never broken, cloy.
Whatever load to thee be given,
Doubt not thy brethren too have striven;
Take what is thine
In the Earth's confine,
And hope to be blest in Heaven.
VI.
TO ——, Led by swift thought, I scale the height,
And strive to sound the deep,
To find from whence I took my flight,
Or where I slept my sleep:
But the mists conceal that border-land
Whose hills they rest upon;
Again, with forward face, I stand,
For Gone is gone.
Sometimes I brood upon the years
I gave to self and sin;
Or call to mind how Doubts and Fears
Fled from a light within:
I might regret those errors past,
Might wish the light still shone,
Or check Life's tide that ebbs so fast;
But Gone is gone.
You, too, my loyal-hearted wife,
Saw many a weary day,
When, on your morning-sky of life,
The clouds of sorrow lay.
True friends departed—grief for them,
Joy for the False made known,
And over all this Requiem,
That Gone is gone.
The glare of many a spectral Truth
Might haunt me still unchanged,
The broken purpose of my Youth,
The loving hearts estranged.
But, turning to your love-lit eyes,
—The love-lit eyes shine on—
I thank my God with happy sighs
That Gone is gone.
VII. Oft, in a night of April, when the ways
Are growing dark, and the hedge-hawthorns dank,
The glow-worm scatters self-adorning rays—
Earth-stars, that twinkle on the primrose bank.
And so, when Life around us gathers Night,
Too dark for Doubt, and ignorant of Sin,
The happy Heart of youth can shed a light
Earth-born, but bright, and feed it from within.
The April night wears on, the darkness wanes,
The light that glimmered in the East grows stronger;
But on the primrose banks that line the lanes,
Weary and chilled, the glow-worm shines no longer.
The night of life as quickly passes o'er,
Coldly and shuddering breaks the dawn of Truth;
Bright Day is coming, but we bear no more
The happy, self-adorning heart of Youth.
VIII. Dream on, ye souls who slumber here,
Leave work to those who work so well;
Yet workers too should haply hear
The messages that Dreamers tell.
The aims of this World shed a light,
Which shines with dim and feeble ray,
Whose followers wander all the night,
And scarce suspect it is not Day.
Yet work who will, the Night flies fast,
Means vary, but the end is one;
Each, when the waking throb is past,
Must face the all-beholding Sun.
I will sleep on, the starry cope
Arching my head with boundless blue,
Till life's strange dream is o'er, in hope
To wake, nor find it all untrue.
IX.
COLONISATION.
(I.) Freemen of England, nourish in your mind
Love for your Land; though poor she be and cold,
Impute it not to her that she is old,
For in her youth she was both warm and kind.
True, it fits not that you should be confined
Within a grudging Island's narrow hold,
That bred, but cannot feed you. O be bold;
Blue heaven has many an excellent fair wind.
Steer, then, in multitudes to other land,
Work ye the field, the river, and the mine,
Smooth the high hill, and fell the long-armed pine,
Till all God's Earth be honourably manned;
But, that your glories may for ever stand,
Let Love be, with you, human and divine.
(II.) H. G. K.
India, 1851.
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