TO
THE MEMORY OF HENRY R. SYMES.
JAMQUE VALE.
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Deep
o’er the pensive mind, in sorrowing gloom,
Sad melancholy holds her
potent sway,
And marks, oh much loved youth! thy early doom,
From friends as dear as
life thus snatched away.
Around the classic board*
shall we no more
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Pursue
the page that marks the foot of time,
Or drink from Helicon that living lore,
Which lifts the soul, and
gives it thoughts sublime. [Page 170]
Ah, no! the scene is closed—each hope is fled—
And life fast fleeting ebbs
from every vein—
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Thou,
HENRY—thou art numbered with the dead,
And I shall shortly follow
in the train.
The fairy dreams that long have mocked the view,
No more shall rise to cheat
th’ aspiring soul—
Hence to earth’s visions let me breathe adieu,
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And
learn ambition’s passion to control.
Poor Kirk-White, Dermody, and
woe-struck Orr,
Proclaim, in all the tide
of highest grief,
The mind too sensitive, ill made to bear
The storms of fate—in
heaven but finds relief.
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Then, friend, farewell! and from my feeble lyre
Accept the parting tribute
that it gives—
Since thou art gone to join the heavenly choir,
Where that best part, the
soul, immortal lives. [Page 171]
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*
This alludes to a Literary Society, established
in Quebec in the winter of 1825, of which MR. SYMES
was a member. [back]
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