Classic Poem

I.

Fair fall the day! 'Tis thirteen years
Since on this day was Ellen born:
And shed the dark world's herald tears
On such another summer's morn:
I may not hear her laughter's flow,
Nor watch the smile upon her face,
But in my heart I surely know
There's joy within her dwelling-place.

II.

Oh, at the age of fair thirteen
A birthday is a thing of power:
The meadows wear a livelier green,
Be it a time of sun, or shower;
We scarce believe the robin's note
Unborrowed from the nightingale,
And when the sweet long day is out,
Our dreams take up the merry tale.

III.

That pleasure being innocent,
With innocence alone accords;
The souls that Passion's strife has rent
Have other thoughts and other words;
They cannot bear that meadow's green;
Strange grief is in the robin's song;
And when they hope to shift the scene,
Their dreams the anguish but prolong.

IV.

Oh, pray for them, thou happy child,
Whose souls are in that silent woe;
For once, like thee, they gayly smiled,
And hoped, and feared, and trusted so!
Pray for them in thy birthday mood,
They may not pass that awful bar,
Which separates the early good
From spirits with themselves at war.

V.

Their mind is now on loves grown cold,
On friendships falling slow away,
On life lived fast, and heart made old
Before a single hair was gray.
Or should they be one thought less sad,
Their dream is still of things forgone,
Sweet scenes that once had made them glad,
Dim faces seen, and never known.

VI.

My own dear sister, thy career
Is all before thee, thorn and flower;
Scarce hast thou known by joy or fear
The still heart-pride of Friendship's hour:
And for that awful thing beyond,
The first affections going forth,
In books alone thy sighs have owned
The heaven, and then the hell, on earth.

VII.

But time is rolling onward, love,
And birthdays are another chase;
Ah, when so much few years remove,
May thy sweet nature hold its place —
Who would not hope, who would not pray,
That looks on thy demeanor now?
Yet have I seen the slow decay
Of many souls as pure as thou.

VIII.

But there are some whose light endures —
A sign of wonder, and of joy,
Which never custom's mist obscures,
Or passion's treacherous gusts destroy.
God make with them a rest for thee!
For thou art turned toward stormy seas,
And when they call thee like to me,
Some terrors on my bosom seize.

IX.

Yet why to-day this mournful tone,
When thou on gladness hast a claim?
How ill befits a boding moan
From one who bears a brother's name!
Here fortune, fancifully kind,
Has led me to a lovely spot,
Where not a tree or rock I find.
My sister, that recalls thee not!

X.

Benan is worth a poet's praise;
Bold are the cairns of Benvenue;
Most beautiful the winding ways
Where Trosachs open on the view;
But other grace Loch Katrine wears,
When viewed by me from Ellen's Isle;
A magic tint on all appears;
It comes from thy remembered smile!

XI.

'Twas there that Lady of the Lake,
Moored to yon gnarled tree her boat;
And where Fitz James's horn bade wake
Each mountain echo's lengthened note;
'Twas from that slope the maiden heard:
Sweet tale! but sweeter far to me,
From dreamy blendings of that word,
With all my thoughts and hopes of thee.