4 Companions of the youthful scene, Endeared from earliest days! With whom I sported on the green, Or roved the woodland maze! Long exiled from your native clime, Or by the thunder-stroke of time Snatched to the shadows of despair; I hear your voices in the wind, Your forms in every walk I find; I stretch my arms: ye vanish into air! 5 My steps, when innocent and young, These fairy paths pursued; And wandering o'er the wild, I sung My fancies to the wood. I mourned the linnet-lover's fate, Or turtle from her murdered mate, Condemned the widowed hours to wail: Or while the mournful vision rose, I sought to weep for imaged woes, Nor real life believed a tragic tale! 6 Alas! misfortune's cloud unkind May summer soon o'ercast! And cruel fate's untimely wind All human beauty blast! The wrath of nature smites our bowers, And promised fruits and cherished flowers, The hopes of life in embryo sweeps; Pale o'er the ruins of his prime, And desolate before his time, In silence sad the mourner walks and weeps! 7 Relentless power! whose fated stroke O'er wretched man prevails! Ha! love's eternal chain is broke, And friendship's covenant fails! Upbraiding forms! a moment's ease-- O memory! how shall I appease The bleeding shade, the unlaid ghost? What charm can bind the gushing eye, What voice console the incessant sigh, And everlasting longings for the lost? 8 Yet not unwelcome waves the wood That hides me in its gloom, While lost in melancholy mood I muse upon the tomb. Their chequered leaves the branches shed; Whirling in eddies o'er my head, They sadly sigh that Winter's near: The warning voice I hear behind, That shakes the wood without a wind, And solemn sounds the death-bell of the year. 9 Nor will I court Lethean streams, The sorrowing sense to steep; Nor drink oblivion of the themes On which I love to weep. Belated oft by fabled rill, While nightly o'er the hallowed hill Aerial music seems to mourn; I'll listen Autumn's closing strain; Then woo the walks of youth again, And pour my sorrows o'er the untimely urn! COMPLAINT OF NATURE. 1 Few are thy days and full of woe, O man of woman born! Thy doom is written, dust thou art, And shalt to dust return. 2 Determined are the days that fly Successive o'er thy head; The numbered hour is on the wing That lays thee with the dead. 3 Alas! the little day of life Is shorter than a span; Yet black with thousand hidden ills To miserable man. 4 Gay is thy morning, flattering hope Thy sprightly step attends; But soon the tempest howls behind, And the dark night descends. 5 Before its splendid hour the cloud Comes o'er the beam of light; A pilgrim in a weary land, Man tarries but a night.