Classic Poem

I'VE heard the tempest howl along the plain,
And screaming winds pour forth a dreadful blast;
While fleaks of snow, and sheets of driving rain
Presented nature as a dreary waste.
Howl now ye tempests, blow ye winds around —
Your gloomy sounds are music to my ear;
Such as I never yet in zephyrs found,
Tho' fan'd by purple wings of vernal air.
The gloomy sound, according with my wo,
Spreads a soft melancholy o'er my mind,
That sooths my pangs, and gives the tender flow
Of lenient drops, to sorrow ever kind.
Ah! what avails my sorrows' sad complaint,
While in the grave my Lucius breathless lies?
The turf enshrines the dust; the skies the saint;
But left behind the hapless mourner dies.
Each day I find the anguish more severe;
In crouds , in solitude , at home, abroad —
Bereav'd of all my inmost soul held dear,
I find her sinking fast beneath the load.
No change of circumstance, no varying scene,
Can draw the deep, envenom'd, barbed dart:
Tho' care maternal, prompts the look serene;
The anxious sigh, still wrings the mother's heart.
Oh! on this day, may each revolving year,
Be mark'd by nature's sympathetic groan!
Nor sighing gales, deny the pitying tear,
While at his tomb, I make my silent moan!
The weeping winds, report my tender grief —
And see! a group celestial hastening down,
To share my wo, and bring my pain relief,
By holding up a bright immortal crown!
Religion first, with Heaven's resplendent beam,
Presents a glass to meet my tearful eye —
Behold! behind this life's impervious screen,
My fav'rite son, and wipe your sorrows dry.
Then friendship, science, liberty, and truth,
Write on his tomb, in characters sublime,
Approve the efforts, of his age and youth,
To hand their influence down to future time.
The graces too, by eloquence led on,
With cypress garlands strew his hallowed grave:
For they had fondly mark'd him as their own —
But vain their power, and influence to save!
In times when civil discord holds her court;
And vice triumphant, keeps his ancient post:
When most is needed, such a firm support,
They mourn with me, their friend and patron lost.