AN OLD BACHELOR'S SOLILOQUY
'Tis night:—but ah! I cannot rest
Though all is calm and silent round me:
At eve, sad thoughts oppress my breast;
At morn, the ills of life confound me.
Where now youth's prospects, joyous, gay?
Where now the hopes I fondly cherished?
Alas! they all have passed away!
Like snow flakes on the stream they've perished!
How lone am I!—nought, nought I hear,
Except the clock that clicks beside me;
No friend have I:—no one is near
To shed a tear whate'er betide me.
The moon illumes the dreary night,
And gilds the ocean's heaving bosom;
But nought can give my heart delight;
I'm like a pale and withered blossom.
Long have I trode life's weary stage,
And fclt its countless pains and sorrows;
And now the icy hand of age
Has spread along my brow its furrows.
A few more cares and trickling tears,
And nought on earth my soul shall cumber!
A few more weary circling years,
And in the grave I'll softly slumber!
No loving wife shall o'er me sigh:
No tender child shall roses gather
To deck my grave, or, weeping, cry,
Alas! alas! my honoured father!
How dull his life, how sad his fate,
Who has no faithful wife to love him,
When he is sick on him to wait,
Or, when he dies, to sigh above him!
He's like a solitary tree,
Whose leaves the wintry tempest scatters!
A lonely bark upon the sea,
That sinks, engulphed, amid the waters!
