Page:Landon in Fisher's Drawing Room Scrap Book 1840.pdf/14

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The youthful poet! here his mind Was in its boyhood nurst; All that impatient soul enshrined Was here developed ﬁrst. What feelings and what thoughts have grown Amid those cloisters, deep and lone! Life’s best, and yet its worst: For ﬁery elements are they, That mould and make such dangerous clay.

A thousand gifts the poet hath Of beauty and delight; He flingeth round a common path, A glory never common sight Would ﬁnd in common hours. And yet such visionary powers Are kin to strife and wrath. The very light with which they glow But telleth of the ﬁre below.

Such minds are like the heated earth Of southern soils and skies; Care calls not to laborious birth The lavish wealth that lies Close to the surface; some bright hour Upsprings the fruit, unfolds the ﬂower, And inward wonders rise: A thousand colours glitter round, The golden harvest lights the ground.

But not the less there lurks below The lava’s burning wave; The red rose and the myrtle grow Above a hidden grave. The life within earth’s panting veins Is ﬁre, which silently remains In each volcanic cave. Fire that gives loveliness and breath, But giveth, in one moment, death!