Classic Poem

Day of my double Birth! if such the Year
Thou usherest in, most welcome!—for my soul
Is sick of public turmoil—ah, most sick
Of the vain effort to redeem a Race
Enslav'd, because degenerate; lost to Hope,
Because to Virtue lost—wrapp'd up in Self,
In sordid avarice, luxurious pomp,
And profligate intemperance——a Race
Fierce without courage; abject, and yet proud;
And most licentious, tho' most far from free.
Ah! let me then, far from the strifeful scenes
Of public life (where Reason's warning voice
Is heard no longer, and the trump of Truth
Who blows but wakes The Ruffian Crew of Power
To deeds of maddest anarchy and blood)
Ah! let me, far in some sequester'd dell,
Build my low cot; most happy might it prove,
My Samuel! near to thine, that I might oft
Share thy sweet converse, best-belov'd of friends!—
Long-lov'd ere known: for kindred sympathies
Link'd, tho far distant, our congenial souls.
Ah! 'twould be sweet, beneath the neighb'ring thatch,
In philosophic amity to dwell,
Inditing moral verse, or tale, or theme,
Gay or instructive; and it would be sweet,
With kindly interchange of mutual aid,
To delve our little garden plots, the while
Sweet converse flow'd, suspending oft the arm
And half-driven spade, while, eager, one propounds,
And listens one, weighing each pregnant word,
And pondering fit reply, that may untwist
The knotty point—perchance, of import high——
Of Moral Truth, of Causes Infinite,
Creating Power! or Uncreated Worlds
Eternal and uncaus'd! or whatsoe'er,
Of Metaphysic, or of Ethic lore,
The mind, with curious subtilty, pursues—
Agreeing, or dissenting—sweet alike,
When wisdom, and not victory, the end.
And 'twould be sweet, my Samuel, ah! most sweet
To see our little infants stretch their limbs
In gambols unrestrain'd, and early learn
Practical love, and, Wisdom's noblest lore,
Fraternal kindliness; while rosiest health,
Bloom'd on their sun-burnt cheeks. And 'twould be sweet,
When what to toil was due, to study what,
And literary effort, had been paid,
Alternate, in each other's bower to sit,
In summer's genial season; or, when, bleak,
The wintry blast had stripp'd the leafy shade,
Around the blazing hearth, social and gay,
To share our srugal viands, and the bowl
Sparkling with home-brew'd beverage:—by our sides
Thy Sara, and my Susan, and, perchance,
Allfoxden's musing tenant, and the maid
Of ardent eye, who, with fraternal love,
Sweetens his solitude.