Page:Poems Sigourney 1827.pdf/71

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Souls in the world's wild vortex tost, Souls to the car of Mammon chain'd, Could scornful look on Eden lost, Or coldly mark its joys regain'd;— Thy niggard age denied the claim,— Yet knew'st thou of thy slighted lay, The guerdon was immortal fame Which proud posterity would pay.

 

Occasioned by reading the manner of carrying a young man to burial, on the back of a horse, in the mountainous region about Vettie's Giel in Norway, in a road on the precipitous declivity of a mountain, so narrow that two persons cannot pass abreast.

Who's riding o'er the Giel so fast, Mid the crags of Utledale? He heeds nor cold, nor storm, nor blast, Though his cheek is deadly pale.

A fringe of pearl from his eye-lash long The wintry frost hath hung, And his sinewy arm seems bold and strong, Yet his brow is smooth and young.

O'er his marble forehead in clusters bright Is wreath'd his golden hair, His robe is of linen long and white. Though a mantle of fur scarce could bide the blight Of this keen and frosty air. 