A lonely wanderer upon the earth am I, The waif of nature--like uprooted weed Borne by the stream, or like a shaken reed, A frail dependent of the fickle sky. Far, far away, are all my natural kin; The mother that erewhile hath hush'd my cry, Almost hath grown a mere fond memory. Where is my sister's smile? my brother's boisterous din? Ah! nowhere now. A matron grave and sage, A holy mother is that sister sweet. And that bold brother is a pastor meet To guide, instruct, reprove a sinful age, Almost I fear, and yet I fain would greet; So far astray hath been my pilgrimage.
How shall a man fore-doom'd to lone estate, Untimely old, irreverently gray, Much like a patch of dusky snow in May, Dead sleeping in a hollow--all too late-- How shall so poor a thing congratulate The blest completion of a patient wooing, Or how commend a younger man for doing What ne'er to do hath been his fault or fate? There is a fable, that I once did read. Of a bad angel that was someway good, And therefore on the brink of Heaven he stood, Looking each way, and no way could proceed; Till at the last he purged away his sin By loving all the joy he saw within.
Here is another poem of very touching reference to his personal story:
"When I received this volume small, My years were barely seventeen; When it was hoped I should be all Which once, alas! I might have been.
"And now my years are thirty-five, And every mother hopes her lamb, And every happy child alive, May never be what now I am.
"But yet should any chance to look On the strange medley scribbled here. I charge thee, tell them, little book, I am not vile as I appear.
"Oh! tell them though thy purpose lame In fortune's race, was still behind,-- Though earthly blots my name defiled, They ne'er abused my better mind.
"Of what men are, and why they are So weak, so wofully beguiled, Much I have learned, but better far, I know my soul is reconciled."
Before we shut the volumes--which will often and often be re-opened by their readers--we may instance, in proof of the variety of his verse, some masterly heroic couplets on the character of Dryden, which will be seen in a series of admirable "sketches of English poets" found written on the fly-leaves and covers of his copy of _Anderson's British Poets_. The successors of Dryden are not less admirably handled, and there are some sketches of Wilkie, Dodsley, Langhorne, and rhymers of that class, inimitable for their truth and spirit.