But if unkindly you refuse to hear, And from despair thy poor MATILDA have; Ah! don't deny one tributary tear, To glisten sweetly o'er my early grave.
[Footnote 1: The above lines were written at the request of a lady, and meant to describe the feelings of one "who loved not wisely, but too well."]
I love the joyous thoughtless heart, The revels of the youthful mind, 'Ere sad experience points the dart, Which wounds so surely all mankind.
It glads me when the buoyant soul, Unconscious ranges, fancy free, Draining the sweets of pleasure's bowl, And thinking all as blest as he.
Ah! me, yet sad it is to know, The many griefs the future brings, That time must change that note to woe, Which now its merry carrol sings.
This "summer of the mind," alas! Must have its autumn--leafless, bare, When all these pleasing phantoms pass, And end in winter, age, and care!
Such, such is life, the moral tells-- The tempest, and its sunny smiles, A warning voice the cheerful bells, The knell of death, our youth beguiles!
With a Drawing of the Head of an Eminent Artist.
Dear Sir, you remember, when Herod of Jewry Had given a ball, how a shocking old fury Demanded, so bent was the vixen on slaughter. The head of St. John at the hand of her daughter: Now do not detest me, nor hold me in dread, Because, like King Herod, I send you a head: Not a saint's, by-the-bye, although _taken from life_, But a head of my friend, by the hand of my wife.
UNDER AN ELEGANT DRAWING OF A DEAD CANARY BIRD,
By Miss A.M. TURNER, Daughter of the Eminent Engraver.
_Death_ to the very _life!_ not the closed eye, Not those small paralytic limbs alone, But every feather tells so mournfully Thy fate, and that thy _little_ life has flown.
Manhood forbids that I should weep, and yet Sadness comes o'er my spirit, and I stand Gazing intensely, and with mute regret, Turn from the wonder of the artist's hand.
Exquisite artist! could I praise thee more Than by the silent admiration? no! And now I try to praise I must deplore How feeble is the verse that tells thee so; But thou art gaining for thyself a fame Worthy thyself, thy sex, and thy dear father's name!
Genius of England! wherefore to the earth Is thy plumed helm, thy peerless sceptre cast? Thy courts of late with minstrelsy and mirth Rang jubilant, and dazzling pageants past; Kings, heroes, martial triumphs, nuptial rites--