O my faithful Friend!
O early chosen, ever found the same,
And trusted and beloved! once more the verse
Long-destined, always obvious to thine ear,
Attend indulgent.
AND wouldst thou seek the low abode
Where Peace delights to dwell?
Pause, Traveller, on thy way of life;
With many a snare and peril rife
Is that long labyrinth of road;
Dark is the vale of years before:
Pause, Traveller, on thy way,
Nor dare the dangerous path explore.
Till old Experience comes to lend his leading ray.
Not he who comes with lantern-light
Shall guide thy groping pace aright
With faltering feet and slow.
No: let him rear the torch on high,
And every maze shall meet thine eye,
And every snare, and every foe ;
Then with steady step and strong,
Traveller, shalt thou march along.
Though Power invite thee to her hall,
Regard not thou her tempting call,
Her splendor's meteor-glare;
Though courteous Flattery there await,
And Wealth adorn the dome of State,
There stalks the midnight spectre Care:
Peace, Traveller, doth not sojourn there.
If Fame allure thee, climb not thou
To that steep mountain's craggy brow
Where stands her stately pile;
For far from thence doth Peace abide,
And thou shalt find Fame's favoring smile Cold as the feeble sun on Hecla's snow-clad side.
And, Traveller, as thou hop'st to find
That low and loved abode,
Retire thee from the thronging road,
And shun the mob of human-kind.
Ah! hear how old Experience schools!
"Fly, fly the crowd of knaves and fools,
And thou shalt fly from woe!
The one thy heedless heart will greet
With Judas-smile, and thou wilt meet
In every fool a foe!"
So safely mayst thou pass from these,
And reach secure the home of Peace,
And Friendship find thee there;
No happier state can mortal know,
No happier lot can Earth bestow,
If Love thy lot shall share.
Yet still Content with him may dwell
Whom Hymen will not bless, And Virtue sojourn in the cell Of hermit Happiness.
The remembrance of Youth is a sigh. ALI.
MAN hath a weary pilgrimage
As through the world he wends;
On every stage, from youth to age,
Still discontent attends.
With heaviness he casts his eye
Upon the road before,
And still remembers, with a sigh,
The days that are no more.
To school the little exile goes,
Torn from its mother's arms;
What then shall soothe his earliest woes,
When novelty hath lost its charms?
Condemned to suffer, through the day,
Restraints which no rewards repay,
And cares where love has no concern,
Hope lengthens as she counts the hours
Before his wished return.
From hard control and tyrant-rules,
The unfeeling discipline of schools,
In thought he loves to roam;
And tears will struggle in his eye,
While he remembers, with a sigh,
The comforts of his home.
Youth comes; the toils and cares of life Torment the restless mind:
Where shall the tired and harassed heart
Its consolation find?
Then is not Youth, as Fancy tells,
Life's summer prime of joy?
Ah, no! for hopes too long delayed,
And feelings blasted or betrayed,
Its fabled bliss destroy;
And Youth remembers, with a sigh,
The careless days of Infancy.
Maturer Manhood now arrives,
And other thoughts come on;
But, with the baseless hopes of Youth,
Its generous warmth is gone.
Cold, calculating cares succeed, –
The timid thought, the wary deed,
The dull realities of truth.
Back on the past he turns his eye,
Remembering, with an envious sigh,
The happy dreams of Youth.
So reaches he the latter stage
Of this our mortal pilgrimage,
With feeble step and slow:
New ills that latter stage await,
And old Experience learns too late
That all is vanity below.
Life's vain delusions are gone by,
Its idle hopes are o'er;
Yet Age remembers, with a sigh,
The days that are no more.
WEARY way-wanderer, languid and sick at heart,
Travelling painfully over the rugged road, —
Wild-visaged Wanderer! God help thee, wretched
Sorely thy little one drags by thee barefooted; Cold is the baby that hangs at thy bending back, Meagre and livid, and screaming for misery.
* Woe-begone mother, half anger, half agony, As over thy shoulder thou look'st to hush the babe, Bleakly the blinding snow beats in thy haggard face.
Ne'er will thy husband return from the war again;
Cold is thy heart, and as frozen as Charity;
Cold are thy children.- Now God be thy comforter!
BRISTOL, 1795.
* This stanza was written by S. T. COLERIDGE.
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