Though soft and warm as "weeping blood," And true, his heart, as truth, They coffin winter in his thoughts, He drinks the wine of curses, Amid the bless'd a stranger, Well may he wish to herd with wolves, "Why was I given in marriage? Said Love, when he was born: Behold him! the Benoni Of glory's natal morn! The mind of man shall be his shroud; His life is deathless death; Bleach'd on the surge of endless years, He sighs—and hath no breath. Why marvel that his spirit Seems dry as dead men's bones? That maidens fear his gestures, And start to hear his tones? If he was call'd a man of grief By Babylonian rivers, In Israel's dreadful day, With soul bow'd like the willows, He, saddest, sweetest bard of all Whom God's dark wing had swept From pride into captivity, Remembering Zion, wept. Ere Rome was, he wrote ballads In manless ruin strown; Then o'er Australia, hungering, Poor waif of land and sea, Ask bread through valleys yet unbuilt, Where London is to be. Or from some Pandour'd palace, That looks o'er slaves afar, Say to his royal legions— "Go, tame the earth with war!" That unborn scribes may write again Their blood-idolatry. Behold him! say what art thou Whose thoughts none understand? The sleeping mastiff hears thee, Thou scorn'd of every land. Famine, that laid thy vitals bare To wind, and sun, and sky, Sees nothing sadder than thy cheek, Or wilder than thine eye. What art thou? Did thy boyhood Or art thou he whom wonder call'd The Avonian's youthful peer, The second Shakspeare? Bread! O Bread! Thou changest-Art thou Dante, Beneath her mournful star? Then hast thou known "how sad the sound Who eats it, and despairs! Thou changest-Trampled Hargraves! Rejoin thy nameless dust; Not even to the lifeless Will cruel man be just. Changed! thought-worn Crompton ! thy sad face Casts gloom on cloudless day; Fool, even in death! why linger here, Trade's meek reproach?-away! Thou changest-Art thou Byron, And did'st thou wed a shadow, Changed! Art thou he, once many-thron'd, While son and wife, walk'd, clad in smiles, Again thou changest. Sad one! How want-worn is thine hand! No diadem thou wearest, Thou scorn'd of every land! EPISTLE TO G. C. HOLLAND, ESQ., M.D., WITH MRS. LOUDON'S "PHILANTHROPIC ECONOMY; OR, THE DOCTOR, I send you, with this scrawl, I do not praise her cheek's rich hue, I say not that the soul's deep blue |