Page:Poems of Nature and Life.djvu/376

 T)66 CONSOLATIONS OF SOLITUDE

And still with sighs all these remember thee,

And love, even while they scorn both Faith and Charity.

��Yet now, ah me ! the gift I half despise — Thy speech so fair, yet ever filled with lies ; Why dost thou promise good, but ne'er fulfil ? Thou soothest, cheerest, yet deceivest still.

See, through the world, toward thee what lengthening train Of wearied wretches turn their wistful eyes, —

Where Freedom falls, and Justice pleads in vain.

Where blue-eyed Peace from armed Oppression flies.

And Truth, though chained, still calm, in Error's dungeon lies.

I see her friendless, yet with stately air. Stern-faced and proud, disdaining to despair ; Lo, through her grate, across the trackless waste. She views thee, and forgets the guilty past. Deeming in death's long sleep her foe shall rest at last.

I, also, knew thee in those years

When the young Hours, in smiles and tears.

Moved slowly on ! But since, at last.

With swifter feet they hurry past.

With faces grave and eyelids dry.

No longer stirred to smile or sigh.

More and more rarely comest thou !

Dim grows the wreath that crowns thy brow.

And scarce I dare to seek thee now.

Since wont companionless to rove

In the deep shadows of that grove

Where bearded Science spends his age.

Absorbed in book or pictured page.

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