Ah! who can say, however fair his view, Through what sad scenes his path may lie? Ah! who can give to others' woes his sigh, Secure his own will never need it too? Let thoughtless youth its seeming joys pursue, Soon will they learn to scan with thoughtful eye The illusive past and dark futurity; Soon will they know-- * * * * * Hush'd is the lyre--the hand that swept The low and pensive wires, Robb'd of its cunning, from the task retires. Yes--it is still--the lyre is still; The spirit which its slumbers broke Hath pass'd away,--and that weak hand that woke Its forest melodies hath lost its skill. Yet I would press you to my lips once more, Ye wild, yet withering flowers of poesy; Yet would I drink the fragrance which ye pour, Mix'd with decaying odours: for to me Ye have beguiled the hours of infancy, As in the wood-paths of my native-- * * * * * When high romance o'er every wood and stream Dark lustre shed, my infant mind to fire, Spell-struck, and fill'd with many a wondering dream, First in the groves I woke the pensive lyre. All there was mystery then, the gust that woke The midnight echo was a spirit's dirge, And unseen fairies would the moon invoke To their light morrice by the restless surge. Now to my sober'd thought with life's false smiles, Too much ... The vagrant Fancy spreads no more her wiles, And dark forebodings now my bosom fill. Once more, and yet once more, I give unto my harp a dark woven lay; I heard the waters roar, I heard the flood of ages pass away. O thou, stern spirit, who dost dwell In thine eternal cell, Noting, gray chronicler! the silent years, I saw thee rise,--I saw the scroll complete; Thou spakest, and at thy feet The universe gave way. Footnotes: [1] These Fragments were written upon the back of his mathematical papers, during the last year of his life. FRAGMENT OF AN ECCENTRIC DRAMA. WRITTEN AT A VERY EARLY AGE. THE DANCE OF THE CONSUMPTIVES. Ding-dong! ding-dong! Merry, merry go the bells, Ding-dong! ding-dong! Over the heath, over the moor, and over the dale, "Swinging slow with sullen roar," Dance, dance away the jocund roundelay! Ding-dong, ding-dong calls us away. Round the oak, and round the elm, Merrily foot it o'er the ground! The sentry ghost it stands aloof, So merrily, merrily foot it round. Ding-dong! ding-dong! Merry, merry go the bells, Swelling in the nightly gale, The sentry ghost, It keeps its post, And soon, and soon our sports must fail: But let us trip the nightly ground, While the merry, merry bells ring round.