Classic Poem

B ORM with a gentle heart, and born to please
With native goodness, of no fortune vain,
The social aspect of inviting ease,
The kind opinion, and the sense humane;

To thee, my Cracroft, whom, in early youth,
With lement hand, and anxious love, I led
Through paths where science points to manly truth,
And glory gilds the mansions of the dead:

To thee this offering of maturer thought,
That, since wild Fancy flung the lyre aside,
With heedful hand the Moral Muse hath wrought,
That Muse devotes, and bears with honest pride.

Yet not that period of the human year,
When Fancy reign'd, shall we with pain review,
All Nature's seasons different aspects wear,
And now her flowers, and now her fruits are due.

Not that in youth we rang'd the smiling meads,
On Essex' shores the trembling angle play'd,
Urging at noon the slow boat in the reeds,
That wav'd their green uncertainty of shade.

Nor yet the days consum'd in Hackthorn's vale,
That lonely on the heath's wild bosom lies,
Should we with stern severity bewail,
And all the lighter hours of life despise.

For Nature's seasons different aspects wear,
And now her flowers, and now her fruits are due;
A while she freed us from the scourge of Care,
But told us then — for social ends we grew.

To find some virtue trac'd on life's short page,
Some mark of service paid to human kind,
Alone can cheer the wintry paths of age,
Alone support the far-reflecting mind.

Oh! often thought — when Smith's discerning care
To further days prolong'd this failing frame!
To die, was little — But what heart could bear
To die, and leave an undistinguish'd name?