Irregular Verses

Ah Julia! ask a Christmas rhymeOf me who in the golden timeOf careless, hopeful, happy youthNe’er strove to decorate the truthContented to lay bare my heartTo one dear Friend, who had her partIn all the love and all the careAnd every joy that harboured there.—To her I told in simple proseEach girlish vision, as it roseBefore an active busy brainThat needed neither spur nor rein,That still enjoyed the present hourYet for the future raised a towerOf bliss more exquisite and pureBliss that (so deemed we) should endureMaxims of caution, prudent fearsVexed not the projects of those yearsSimplicity our steadfast theme,No works of Art adorned our scheme.—A cottage in a verdant dell,A foaming stream, a crystall Well,A garden stored with fruit and flowersAnd sunny seats and shady bowers,A file of hives for humming beesUnder a row of stately treesAnd, sheltering all this faery ground,A belt of hills must wrap it round,Not stern or mountainous, or bare,Nor lacking herbs to scent the air;Nor antient trees, nor scattered rocks,And pastured by the blameless flocksThat print their green tracks to inviteOur wanderings to the topmost height.Such was the spot I fondly framedWhen life was new, and hope untamed:There with my one dear Friend would dwell,Nor wish for aught beyond the dell.Alas! the cottage fled in air,The streamlet never flowed:—Yet did those visions pass awaySo gently that they seemed to stay,Though in our riper years we each pursued a different way.

—We parted, sorrowful; by duty led;My Friend, ere long a happy WifeWas seen with dignity to treadThe paths of usefulness, in active life;And such her course through later days;The same her honour and her praise;As thou canst witness, thou dear Maid,One of the Darlings of her care;Thy Mother was that Friend who still repaidFrank confidence with unshaken truth:This was the glory of her youth,A brighter gem than shines in prince’s diadem.

You ask why in that jocund timeWhy did I not in jingling rhymeDisplay those pleasant guileless dreamsThat furnished still exhaustless themes?—I reverenced the Poet’s skill,And might have nursed a mounting WillTo imitate the tender LaysOf them who sang in Nature’s praise;But bashfulness, a struggling shameA fear that elder heads might blame—Or something worse—a lurking prideWhispering my playmates would derideStifled ambition, checked the aimIf e’er by chance “the numbers came”—Nay even the mild maternal smile,That oft-times would repress, beguileThe over-confidence of youth,Even that dear smile, to own the truth,Was dreaded by a fond self-love;“‘Twill glance on me—and to reproveOr,” (sorest wrong in childhood’s school)“Will point the sting of ridicule.”

And now, dear Girl, I hear you askIs this your lightsome, chearful task?You tell us tales of forty years,Of hopes extinct, of childish fears,Why cast among us thoughts of sadnessWhen we are seeking mirth and gladness?Nay, ill those words befit the MaidWho pleaded for my Christmas rhymeMirthful she is; but placid—staid—Her heart beats to no giddy chimeThough it with Chearfulness keep timeFor Chearfulness, a willing guest,Finds ever in her tranquil breastA fostering home, a welcome rest.And well she knows that, casting thought away,We lose the best part of our day;That joys of youth remembered when our youth is pastAre joys that to the end of life will last;

And if this poor memorial strain,Breathed from the depth of years gone by,Should touch her Mother’s heart with tender pain,Or call a tear into her loving eye,She will not check the tear or still the rising sigh.—The happiest heart is given to sadness;The saddest heart feels deepest gladness.

Thou dost not ask, thou dost not needA verse from me; nor wilt thou heedA greeting masked in laboured rhymeFrom one whose heart has still kept timeWith every pulse of thine.