LINES,
WRITTEN ON VISITING THE FALLS
OF THE CHAUDIERE,*
1827.
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Stream
of the dark, unbounded wild,
What varied changes here
to roam,
Where nature’s free, untutored child,
Light paddles o’er
thy water’s foam.
And in yon liquid sheet above
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Suspended
near the gloomy verge,
Each image of the leafy grove,
Seems trembling from the
swelling surge!
Oh! there are times, when fancy feels
Each splendid joy this world
pourtrays—
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And
with her magic impulse steals
The heart to thoughts of
other days. [Page 141]
And there are visions of the past,
Reflected from our boyhood’s
prime,
When memory’s eye is backward cast,
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Along
the curling brook of time.
Yet, in the path which fate has given,
More splendid scenes ne’er
shone to man,
Than now, yon tinted bow of heaven
Embraces in its fairy span.
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Here, where the happy Indian strays,
Or loiters on the frowning
steep,
To watch the beaver, where it plays
Its frolicks in the distant
deep.
How blissful thus one hour to spend,
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Nature’s
grand outlines to behold—
And to some kind—some valued friend,
The feelings of the heart
unfold. [Page 142]
Yes, there are few but own the power
Which mutual conversation
brings,
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In
such a place—in such an hour—
To cheer the soul’s
dark sorrowings.
For transient are the beams that play
Across the lonely path we
tread—
And dim the momentary ray,
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That
even Hope itself can shed—
Can shed, to gild the chequered stream,
On which the shade of life
is cast—
When in its pale, its fleeting gleam,
We read the future by the
past!
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But from such gloomy thoughts as these,
My heart would now most
gladly turn,
Where Nature’s mildest prospects please,
And Discontent might cease
to mourn. [Page 143]
The frowning cliff, that far extends
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Its
spray-washed bosom o’er the deep,
On which the venturous youth oft bends,
Unmindful of the rugged
steep—
A sweet, romantic joy imparts,
While from the coiling surge
he draws
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The
speckled trout, that dives or darts,
Then makes its last exhausted
pause.
Man loves the vivid changes wrought,
Along the course he’s
doomed to steer—
Nor ever yields the pleasing thought,
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That
future joys his heart will cheer—
And give the coming day a hue,
As pure and lovely as the
even,
Now forming its unsullied blue
Around the closing arch
of heaven. [Page 144]
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The bliss we share is not so sweet
As that which gives the
future hour,
A glowing charm we seldom meet,
Save in Imagination’s
bower.
Then let me now enjoy the good,
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Possessed
in this one sunny minute,
And I shall think the cheerful wood
Has home, and heaven, and
rapture in it. [Page 145]
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* On consideration, it has been
thought proper to substitute these stanzas, and
the two following little poems, in place of the
address to POLYPHEMUS, which, perhaps, was too satirical
for a publication of this nature. [back]
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