Page:The Poets and Poetry of the West.djvu/98

h2 ELIJAH P. LOVEJOY. [1830-40. He was a lone and solitary one, With none to love, and pity he disdained : His hopes were wrecked, and all his joys were gone ; But his dark eye blanched not ; his pride remained ; And if he deeply felt, to none had he complained. Of all that knew him, few but judged him wrong : He was of silent and unsocial mood : Unloving and unloved he passed along : His chosen path with steadfast aim he trod, Nor asked nor wished applause, save only of his God. Oh ! how preposterous 'tis for man to claim In his own strength to chain the human soul! Go, first, and learn the elements to tame, Ere you would exercise your vain control O'er that which pants and strives for an immortal goal. Yet oft a young and generous heart has been By cruel keepers trampled on and torn ; And all the worst and wildest passions in The human breast have roused them- selves in scorn, That else had dormant slept, or never had been born. Take heed, ye guardians of the youthful mind, That facile grows beneath your kindly care ; 'Tis of elastic mould, and, if confined With too much stress, " shoots madly from its sphere," Unswayed by love, and unrestrained by fear. Oh ! 'tis a fearful, blasting sight to see The soul in ruins, withered, rived and wrung. And doomed to spend its immortality. Darkling and hopeless, where despair has flung Her curtains o'er the loves to which it fondly clung. So thought the wanderer : so, perhaps, he felt: (But this is unrevealed): now had he come To the far woods, and there in silence knelt On the sharp flint-stone, in rayless gloom, And fervently he prayed to find an early tomb. Weep not for him : he asks no sympathy From human hearts or eyes; aloof, alone. On his own spirit let him rest, and be By all his kind forgotten and unknown ; And wild winds mingle with his dying groan. And in the desert let him lie and sleep. In that sweet rest exhausted nature gave ; Oh ! make his clay-cold mansion dark and deep, While the tall trees their somber foliage wave. And drop it blighted on the wanderer's grave.