He sleeps within a nameless grave,
Where spring's luxuriant blossoms wave,
⁠For summer's reign is nigh.
The solitude around his tomb
Is beautiful as Eden's bloom
⁠Ere beauty learned to die.
 
Her fairest and most fragrant flowers
Kind May in bright profusion showers
⁠Upon that lovely spot;
Where the sick heart and weary head
Rest in their last dark, narrow bed,
⁠Forgetting and forgot.

No drooping mourners kneel beside
That lonely grave at eventide.
⁠And bathe them with their tears;
But oft the balmy dews of night
Lave it in pity, when the light
⁠Of kindling stars appears.

No loved ones breathe the holy prayer,
But nature's incense fills the air,
⁠And seeks the distant sky.
Her artless hymn the song-bird sings.
The dreamy hum of insect wings,
⁠Are prayers that never die.

Good friends, you urge my odes grow trite,
⁠And that of worthless station,
Of fleeting youth and joy, I write
⁠With endless iteration.

But say, in mortals, base or great,
⁠Have you a change detected?
Are they, when victors, less elate.
⁠When vanquished, less dejected?

Do they no more in mundane mire
⁠For golden garbage scramble?
Or, but companioned with the lyre,
⁠Up twisting Anio ramble?
 
Hath Fortune ceased to prove a jade?
⁠Hath favour waxed less fickle?
Hath shamed Bellona dropped her blade,
⁠Or Death put up his sickle?

Doth age no longer rime the hair?
⁠Finds Virtue always supper?
Or, when cit. rides, a knight, doth Care
⁠No more bestride the crupper?
 
Do not the rosy hours wax pale.
⁠New loves old loves disherit;
And sleight of golden showers prevail
⁠'Gainst Danae's brazen turret?

Sooth, verbum sap. But then, Jove knows!
⁠Men are not wise, but foolish;
Whether they scan Soracte's snows,
⁠Or those near Ballachulish.

Still, still they hug the bestial sty,
⁠And have not changed one wee bit;
Unpleasing truth, which "Repeti-
⁠Ta decies {non) placebit."

Ask such to share my Sabine meal!
⁠And twine the parsley classic!
For such to break the Manlian seal,
⁠And liberate my Massic!

A pretty tale! Why, ken you not,
⁠Good friends, as lately showed I,
In verse already you've forgot, —
⁠Profanum vulgus odi?

Fair maid, or minister, I dine.
⁠Toast Rome or Alma Venus:
When Lydia will not kiss my wine,
⁠Why, then, I ask Mæcenas.

For such and self the chords I strike
⁠Of wisdom, love, and scorning;
And if the world my themes mislike,
⁠Well, — gentlemen, good-morning!

Sublimely calm — her only wish to know —
⁠In her unswerving glance nor fear nor ruth,
Reckless how sun may shine, or storms may blow.
⁠Stands, like an adamantine statue, Truth.

See, in the kindling east that cloudlet grey.
⁠Touched by the dawn, a heavenly gem appears;
Thus Hope floats lucent in life's early ray,
⁠Thus, too, or yet 'tis noon, oft falls in tears.

Full many a mimic part doth Love sustain
⁠And aptly act in aspect, mien, and breath;
But his chief characters are Grief and Pain,
⁠And often, too, he shows himself as Death.

O'er rugged roads doth Reason slow advance,
⁠Pondering each step with face to earth inclined,
Yet sometimes will he raise a longing glance,
⁠And list Faith's wordless promise on the wind.