Chapter XIII

Upon the wild stream’s shadowy brink,
’Tis sweet, alone to stand, and think;--
In riper years it claims a sigh,
A sigh, the bosom cannot stifle,
That as the current rushes by,
Rending each flower that blossoms nigh,
So time our early joys will rifle.
Delights, that gild our dawn of day,
Like the swift stream, will pass away;
Each image, in life’s early dream,
Dissolves, ere manhood’s stronger beam
Lights the true pathway of our fate,
Or shows how vain, (but ah too late!)
Was the fair future fancy gave;
Vain as the streamlet’s gliding wave,
That sparkles but a moment’s space,
Then fades, nor leaves one single trace
Of where, or what it was before,--
Lost in the billow’s ceaseless roar!
We gaze, and as the river flows,
Life’s varying course its passage shows;
Now, swell’d by headlong mountain streams;
“Now, softly murmuring calm and slow,
Far off its waveless mirror gleams,
“(And heaven’s own shadow spreads below)
Amid the ever blooming grove,
“Like future joy thro’ hope’s false beams:
They fickle, frail, and worthless prove!
Each hour that owns bright pleasure’s sway;
The fire of genius; fancy’s ray;
Love’s cheating power, and ardent flame,
All! all! save friendship’s sacred name,
Upon the torrent wave of time,
Flee, with our manhood’s fleeting prime;
And leave, alone, the sullen gloom
Of spirits, journeying to the tomb;
Save, that, tho’ faint her light is beaming,
HOPE still upon the soul is gleaming!
Points, thro’ misfortune’s darkest shade,
To brighter joys, that never fade;--
Not vivid, as in life’s gay morning
“She danc’d in nature’s lovely bowers;
Not falsely, as in youth adorning
With promis’d ecstacy the hours!
But calm, unclouded, firm, and pure;
Tho’ dim her beams, their guidance sure.--
So on the last resounding wave,
That speeds to an unfathom’d grave,
The sunbeam sheds its brilliant ray;
On each bright drop its glimm’rings play;
It fades in radiant beams of day:
Whelm’d in the ocean’s bosom deep,
The silent waves unconscious sleep;--
Unconscious, that they once had swept
Along the soil, where genius slept;
Or bounded o’er the rocky height,
Swell’d into rage by tempest’s might;
Or, that their waters once had laved
A land that ne’er might be enslaved;
By patriot arm in peril sav’d,
Ev’n as unconscious as the clay,
That wraps our remnants of decay,
When to the joyless sea of age
Recedes the stream of youthful rage.--