Читать книгу Selected Poems of Bernard Barton, the 'Quaker Poet' - Christopher Stokes W. - Страница 24

HAUNTS OF CHILDHOOD

“O long be my heart with such memories fill’d!

Like the vase in which roses have once been distill’d;

You may break, you may ruin the vase if you will,

But the scent of the roses will hang round it still.”

Moore.

Who has not known and felt the soothing charm

Of looking back to hours, so clear and calm,

They seem as if they scarce were spent on earth,

But ow’d to mere imagination birth?

He most enjoys them, who in childhood slighted 5

Their present bliss;—whose eager eye delighted

The shadowy joys of future years to scan,

And sigh’d, most foolishly, to be a man!

* * * * * * *

We need not sleep to dream.—I was not sleeping;

But busy memory was her vigils keeping; 10

And on my mind past images were thronging,

Bringing those feelings to the past belonging;

They came so thick about me, that at last,

I fairly lost the present in the past;

And, for a time, a happy boy again, 15

I lost in memory’s pleasure, manhood’s pain.

I stroll’d along a winding lane: a stream

Flow’d on one side of it; the sun’s bright beam

Was here and there reflected, gaily glancing,

As o’er its pebbly bed that brook was dancing: 20

Sometimes, so narrow were its banks, the eye

Could scarcely trace it in its revelry;

Half hid by stunted bushes, on it flow’d;

Now still, now murmuring sweetly on its road:—

A wooden bridge then cross’d it, and I stood 25

Awhile upon that bridge in pensive mood,

To look around me.

Straight before me rose

A house, where all was hush’d in calm repose;

For ’twas a summer morning, bright and fair,

And none of human kind were near me there: 30

Before the house there were some lofty trees,

Whose topmost branches felt the morning breeze,

And glisten’d in the sunbeams; these among

Were numerous rooks, attending on their young,

Whose clamorous cawings, as they hover’d round, 35

Seem’d to my ear like Music’s sweetest sound.

Below, before the house, there was a space,

Where in two rows were set, with bloomy grace,

Orange and lemon trees; which to the sun

Open’d their fragrant blossoms every one; 40

And round them bees all busily were humming,

Cheerily to their morning labours coming:—

And in the centre of each space beside,

An aloe spread its prickly leaves with pride.

* * * * * * *

Now in the garden of that house I stray’d, 45

Its flowers, its mossy turf, its walks survey’d;

Explor’d each nook, and roam’d through each recess,

With pleasure, and light-hearted carelessness:

Nor was it long before I found a walk

Where I could think, or to myself could talk;— 50

A grassy walk, with lime trees on one side,

Bordering a pond which yet they did not hide;

For here and there upon its rippling bosom

The water lily op’d her dewy blossom;

And at the end of this sweet walk I found 55

A grotto, where I listen’d to the sound

Of turtle-doves, which in a room above,

Were tremulously telling tales of love.

* * * * * * *

But wherefore dwell upon these recollections,

These hallow’d haunts of childhood’s warm affections? 60

Why? but because they rise with wings of healing,

And hover round me; softly, sweetly stealing

Its bitterest pang from pain, its sting from sorrow,

And from past blessedness fresh blessings borrow.

O! ere such dreams as these for ever leave me, 65

Or manhood of such blameless bliss bereave me;

Memory, and life itself, must both be past,

For while I live, at times, must their remembrance last.