Poetry Archives

O Lost too soon! accept the tear
  A stranger to thy memory pays!
Dear to the muse, to science dear,
  In the young morning of thy days!

All the wild notes that pity loved
  Awoke, responsive still to thee,
While o’er the lyre thy fingers roved
  In softest, sweetest harmony.

The chords that in the human heart
  Compassion touches as her own,
Bore in thy symphonies a part—
  With them in perfect unison.

Amidst accumulated woes
  That premature afflictions bring,
Submission’s sacred hymn arose,
  Warbled from every mournful string.

When o’er thy dawn the darkness spread,
  And deeper every moment grew;
When rudely round thy youthful head
  The chilling blasts of sickness blew;

Religion heard no ‘plainings loud,
  The sigh in secret stole from thee;
And pity, from the “dropping cloud,”
  Shed tears of holy sympathy.

Cold is that heart in which were met
  More virtues than could ever die;
The morning star of hope is set—
  The sun adorns another sky.

O partial grief! to mourn the day
  So suddenly o’erclouded here,
To rise with unextinguish’d ray—
  To shine in a superior sphere!

Oft Genius early quits this sod,
  Impatient of a robe of clay,
Spreads the light pinion, spurns the clod,
  And smiles, and soars, and steals away!

But more than genius urged thy flight,
  And mark’d the way, dear youth! for thee:
Henry sprang up to worlds of light
On wings of immortality!


Blackheath Hill, 24th June, 1808.