THE DEPARTURE

From Hudson's cold, congealing streams

As winter comes, I take my way

Where other suns prompt other dreams,

And shades, less willing to decay,

Beget new raptures in the heart,

Bid spleen's dejective crew depart,

And wake the sprightly lay.

Good-natur'd Neptune, now so mild,

Like rage asleep, or madness chain'd,

By dreams amus'd or love beguil'd,

Sleep on‘ till we our port have gain'd.

The gentle breeze that curls the deep,

Shall paint a finer dream on sleep!—

Ye nymphs, that haunt his grottoes low,

Where sea green trees on coral grow,

No tumults make

Lest he should wake,

And thus the passing shade betray

The sails that o'er his waters stray.

Sunk is the sun from yonder hill,

The noisy day is past;

The breeze decays, and all is still,

As all shall be at last;

The murmuring on the distant shore,

The dying wave is all I hear,

The yellow fields now disappear,

No painted butterflies are near,

And laughing folly plagues no more.

The woods that deck yon’ fading waste,

That every wanton gale embrac'd,

Ere summer yet made haste to fly;

How smit with frost the pride of June!

How lost to me! how very soon

The fairy prospects die!

Condemn'd to bend to winter's stroke,

Low in the dust the embowering oak

Has bid the fading leaf descend,

Their short liv'd verdure at an end;

How desolate the forests seem,

Beneath whose shade

The enamour'd maid

Was once so fond to dream.

What now is left of all that won

The eye of mirth while summer stay'd —

The birds that sported in the sun,

The sport is past, the song is done;

And nature's naked forms declare,

The rifled groves, the vallies bare,

Persuasively, tho’ silent, tell,

That at the best they were but drest

Sad mourners for the funeral bell!

Now while I spread the venturous sail

To catch the breeze from yonder hill,

Say, what does all this folly mean?

Why grieve to pass the wat'ry scene?

Is fortitude to heaven confin'd?—

No — planted also in the mind,

She smooths the ocean when she will.

But life is pain — what ills must try,

What malice dark and calumny,

Indifference, with her careless eye,

And slander, with her tale begun;

Bold ignorance, with forward air,

And cowardice, that has no share

In honours gain'd, or trophies won.

To these succeed, ( and these are few

Of nature's dark, unseemly crew )

Unsocial pride, and cold disgust,

Servility, that licks the dust;

Those harpies that disgrace the mind;

Unknown to haunt the human breast

When pleasure her first garden dress'd —

But vanish'd is the shade so gay,

And lost in gloom the summer day

That charm'd the soul to rest.

What season shall restore that scene

When all was calm and all serene,

And happiness no empty sound,

The golden age, that pleas'd so well?—

The Mind that made it shall not tell

To those on life's uncertain road;

Where lost in folly's idle round,

And seeking what shall ne'er be found

We press to one abode.