Classic Poem

To speed the luckless moments, heavy-wing'd,
And from the drowsy monarch glorious steal,
And dark oblivion drear, the silent hour,
To meditation sacred and the muse;
In grave abstraction from the noise of life,
Thus let me frequent brush the dewy brake,
And, lonely devious, urge the darksome step,
Where, rising gradual, tow'rs the shrubby hill.

Now, Night's vicegerent, Silence, awful pow'r!
In sage solemnity, and pomp august,
Brooding retir'd amid immantling glooms
Horrific, holds her solitary reign,
While yielding Nature owns her potent sway.

The scold's loud larum, and the dinsome mirth
Of lawless revellers, plague not the ear:
And rock born Echo, daughter of the hill,
The dupe of empty clangor, answers not
The ox's bellow, or the horse's neigh.

Not one rebellions murmur wide around
Affects the sense; save from an aged fane,
(Whose rocky ruins, honour'd in decay,
Rise venerable, furr'd with drawling slugs),
Her lone-retreat, the melancholic bird
Portentous and obscene, the hooting owl
Of formal phiz, in grave discordance hails
The full-orb'd moon, who now from orient climes
Drives slowly on, in majesty sedate,
Her silver wain; with noiseless flight they cleave
The blue expanse, her coursers eagle-wing'd.

Shook from Night's sable skirt, the blue-grey cloud
Reds on the hill, slow creeping to the vale.

Athwart the vault etherial, airy borne,
The streamy vapours, carv'd to giant forms
By rural fancy, playful, wheel convolv'd,
Portending hunger, pestilence, and death;
So dreams the gloomy peasant, labour-worn,
Who, from the turf-clos'd window's scanty round,
With grave regard the novel wonder views,
And, ruminating sad, bewails the times.

The red-blue meteor, daughter of the marsh,
In dance irreg'lar sweeps the rushy vale,
While hell's grim monarch (so the vulgar deem)
Rides in the glimm'ring blaze, with purpose drear,
And murderous intent, and frequent drowns
The heedless wand'rer in the swardy gulf.

Now light-heel'd fairies ply the circ'lar dance,
With sportive elves, upon the midnight green;
While screaming hideous, from the dismal bourne
Of desolated castles, goblins pale,
Bloody and gaunt, the progeny abhorr'd
Of superstition, hell-engender'd pow'r,
By cunning monks conjur'd from lowest Styx!
Affright the maudlin rustic.—Now solemn,
To fancy's morbid eye, the sullen ghost,
In sheeted grandeur thro' the church-yard stalks
Horrendous, mutt'ring to the sick'ning moon;
Until the bird of Mars with noisy clap,
Arrousive of the dawn, shall crow aloud.

Now Scandal's votaries, of flippant tongue
And haggard look, low-bending o'er a fire
Almost extinct, beneath a cloud obscene,
Tobacco-form'd, sit planning future lies.

With bolts and double-doors in vain secur'd,
Grey-headed Av'rice on the elbow rais'd,
Distrustful listens to the plaintive breeze
That howls without, while to his jealous ear
A dire divan of hellish ruffians curs'd
Debate the future breach: mad at the thought,
With palsy'd arms, new-strung from fear, he grasps
His money-bags, and swears they shall not have 'em.

Now in his rev'rend study, cobweb lin'd,
Beside a paly lamp, with bitten nails,
The meagre student o'er a folio sits
Of sagest bulk, in meditation deep:
Weak nature oft invites to sweet repose,
And bids restore the labour'd volume huge
To worms innate; but o'er his fancy come
The patron's money'd aunt, his future spouse,
The glebe, the solemn sables, cravat starch,
And urge some pages more; till rushing prone,
The classic cruise, in hapless station plac'd,
In fragments scatter'd lies, and victor Sleep
His triumph trumpets from the vocal nose.

Now, by the willow'd brink of wand'ring streams,
The woe-worn lover walks with varied pace
Mutt'ring his wayward fancies to the wind,
Obtesting heav'n, and cursing ev'ry star
That lowr'd malicious on his hopeful flame;
Or, in a moss-lin'd cave, below an oak
Of ancient growth, he plans the song of woe,
The word-weigh'd elagy of liquid lapse,
And cadence glib; Or, weary'd to repose,
His sigh-shook frame lies blissfully entranc'd
(For so he dreams) in fair C LEONE'S arms.