Classic Poem

On as I journey through the vale of years,
By hopes enliven'd, or depress'd by fears,
Allow me, Memory, in thy treasured store,
To view the days that will return no more.
And yes! before thine intellectual ray
The clouds of mental darkness melt away!
As when, at earliest day's awakening dawn,
The hovering mists obscure the dewy lawn,
O'er all the landscape spread their influence chill,
Hang o'er the vale and wood, and hide the hill;
Anon, slow-rising, comes the orb of day;
Slow fade the shadowy mists and roll away;
The prospect opens on the traveller's sight,
And hills and vales and woods reflect the living light.

O thou, the mistress of my future days,
Accept thy minstrel's retrospective lays;
To whom the minstrel and the lyre belong,
Accept, my E DITH , Memory's pensive song.
Of long-past days I sing, ere yet I knew
Or thought and grief, or happiness and you;
Ere yet my infant heart had learnt to prove
The cares of life, the hopes and fears of love.

Corston, twelve years in various fortunes fled
Have past with restless progress o'er my head,
Since in thy vale, beneath the master's rule,
I dwelt an inmate of the village school.
Yet still will Memory's busy eye retrace
Each little vestige of the well-known place;
Each wonted haunt and scene of youthful joy
Where merriment has cheer'd the careless boy
Well-pleased will fancy still the spot survey
Where once he triumph'd in the boyish play
Without one care where every morn he rose,
Where every evening sunk to calm repose:

Large was the house, though fallen in course of fate,
From its old grandeur and manorial state.
Lord of the manor, here the jovial Squire
Once call'd his tenants round the crackling fire
Here while the glow of joy suffused his face,
He told his ancient exploits in the chase,
And, proud his rival sportsmen to surpass,
He lit again the pipe, and fill'd again the glass.

But now no more was heard at early morn
The echoing clangor of the huntsman's horn;
No more the eager hounds with deepening cry
Leap'd round him as they knew their pastime nigh;
The Squire no more obey'd the morning call;
Nor favorite spaniels fill'd the sportsman's hall
For he, the last descendant of his race,
Slept with his fathers, and forgot the chase
There now in petty empire o'er the school
The mighty Master held despotic rule;
Trembling in silence all his deeds we saw,
His look a mandate, and his word a law;
Severe his voice, severe and stern his mien,
And wondrous strict he was, and wondrous was I ween.

Even now through many a long, long year I trace
The hour when first with awe I view'd his face
Even now recall my entrance at the dome,
'Twas the first day I ever left my home!
Years intervening have not worn away
The deep remembrance of that wretched day
Nor taught me to forget my earliest fears,
A mother's fondness, and a mother's tears;
When close she press'd me to her sorrowing hear
As loath as even I myself to part;
And I, as I beheld her sorrows flow,
With painful effort hid my inward woe.

But time to youthful troubles brings relief,
And each new object weans the child from grief
Like April showers the tears of youth descend
Sudden they fall, and suddenly they end,
And fresher pleasure cheers the following hour
As brighter shines the sun after the April showe.

Methinks even now the interview I see,
The Mistress's glad smile, the Master's glee
Much of my future happiness they said,
Much of the easy life the scholars led,
Of spacious play-ground and of wholesome
The best instruction and the tenderest care;
And when I followed to the garden-door
My father, till through tears I saw no more,
How civilly they soothed my parting pain!
And never did they speak so civilly again.
Why loves the soul on earlier years to dwell,
When Memory spreads around her saddening spell,
When discontent, with sullen gloom o'ercast,
Turns from the present, and prefers the past?
Why calls reflection to my pensive view
Each trifling act of infancy anew,
Each trifling act with pleasure pondering o'er,
Even at the time when trifles please no more?
Yet is remembrance sweet, though well I know
The days of childhood are but days of woe;
Some rude restraint, some petty tyrant sours
What else should be our sweetest, blithest hours;
Yet is it sweet to call those hours to mind, —
Those easy hours forever left behind;
Ere care began the spirit to oppress,
When ignorance itself was happiness.

Such was my state in those remember'd years,
When two small acres bounded all my fears;
And therefore still with pleasure, I recall
The tapestried school, the bright, brown-boarded hall,
The murmuring brook, that every morning saw
The due observance of the cleanly law;
The walnuts, where, when favor would allow,
Full oft I wont to search each well-stripp'd bough;
The crab-tree, which supplied a secret hoard
With roasted crabs to deck the wintry board;
These trifling objects then my heart possess'd,
These trifling objects still remain impress'd;
So when with unskill'd hand some idle hind
Carves his rude name within a sapling's rind,
In after years the peasant lives to see
The expanding letters grow as grows the tree;
Though every winter's desolating sway
Shake the hoarse grove and sweep the leaves away,
That rude inscription uneffaced will last,
Unalter'd by the storm or wintry blast.

Oh, while well pleased the letter'd traveller roams
Among old temples, palaces, and domes,
Strays with the Arab o'er the wreck of time
Where erst Palmyra's towers arose sublime,
Or marks the lazy Turk's lethargic pride,
And Grecian slavery on Ilyssus' side,
Oh, be it mine, aloof from public strife,
To mark the changes of domestic life,
The alter'd scenes where once I bore a part,
Where every change of fortune strikes the heart.
As when the merry bells with echoing sound
Proclaim the news of victory around,
Rejoicing patriots run the news to spread
Of glorious conquest and of thousands dead,
All join the loud huzza with eager breath,
And triumph in the tale of blood and death;
But if extended on the battle-plain,
Cut off in conquest some dear friend be slain,
Affection then will fill the sorrowing eye,
And suffering Nature grieve that one should die.

Cold was the morn, and bleak the wintry blast
Blew o'er the meadow, when I saw thee last.
My bosom bounded as I wandered round,
With silent step, the long-remember'd ground,
Where I had loiter'd out so many an hour,
Chased the gay butterfly, and cull'd the flower,
Sought the swift arrow's erring course to trace,
Or with mine equals vied amid the chase.
I saw the church where I had slept away
The tedious service of the summer day;
Or, hearing sadly all the preacher told,
In winter waked and shiver'd with the cold.
Oft have my footsteps roam'd the sacred ground
Where heroes, kings, and poets sleep around;
Oft traced the mouldering castle's ivied wall,
Or aged convent tottering to its fall;
Yet never had my bosom felt such pain,
As, Corston, when I saw thy scenes again;
For many a long-lost pleasure came to view,
For many a long-past sorrow rose anew;
Where whilom all were friends I stood alone,
Unknowing all I saw, of all I saw unknown.

There, where my little hands were wont to rear
With pride the earliest salad of the year;
Where never idle weed to spring was seen,
Rank thorns and nettles rear'd their heads obscene.
Still all around and sad, I saw no more
The playful group, nor heard the playful roar;
There echoed round no shout of mirth and glee;
It seem'd as though the world were changed like me!

Enough! it boots not on the past to dwell, —
Fair scene of other years, a long farewell!
Rouse up, my soul! it boots not to repine;
Rouse up! for worthier feelings should be thine;
Thy path is plain and straight, — that light is given, —
Onward in faith, — and leave the rest to Heaven.