The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep—the dead reign there alone.—
So shalt thou rest—and what if thou shalt fall
Unnoticed by the living—and no friend
Take note of thy departure? Thousands more
Will share thy destiny.—The tittering world
Dance to the grave. The busy brood of care
Plod on, and each one chases as before
His favourite phantom.—Yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee!
A Fragment.
Stranger, if thou hast learnt a truth which needs
Experience more than reason, that the world
Is full of guilt and misery; and hast known
Enough its sorrows, crimes and cares
To tire thee of it—enter this wild wood,
And view the haunts of Nature. The calm shade
Shall bring a kinder calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart. Here thou wilt nothing find
Of all that pain’d thee in the haunts of man,
And made thee loathe thy life. The primal curse
Fell, it is true, upon the unsinning earth,
But not in vengeance. Misery is wed
To guilt. Hence in these shades we still behold
The abodes of gladness, here from tree to tree
And through the rustling branches flit the birds
In wantonness of spirit;—theirs are strains
Of no dissembled rapture—while below
The squirrel with rais’d paws and form erect
Chirps merrily. In the warm glade the throngs
Of dancing insects sport in the mild beam
That wak’d them into life. Even the green trees
Partake the deep contentment; as they bend
To the soft winds the sun from the blue sky
Peeps in and sheds a blessing on the scene.
Scarce less the cleft-born wild-flower seems to enjoy
Existence, than the winged plunderer
That sucks its sweets. The massy rocks themselves
And the old and ponderous trunks of prostrate trees
That lead from knoll to knoll a causeway rude,
