Let Adulation wait on kings; 66 Friendship is Love without his wings! Fictions and dreams inspire the bard To me no bays belong; my reward - If laurell'd Fame but dwells with lies, Whose heart and not whose fancy sings; THE PRAYER OF NATURE. (1) [WRITTEN DECEMBER 29. 1806.] FATHER of Light! great God of Heaven! Can vice atone for crimes by prayer? (1) It is difficult to conjecture for what reason,—but these stanzas were not included in the publication of 1807; though few will hesitate to place them higher than any thing given in that volume. Written when the author was not nineteen years of age, this remarkable poem shows," says Moore, "how early the struggle between natural piety and doubt began in his mind." In reading the celebrated critique of the Edinburgh Review on the "Hours of Idleness," the fact that the volume did not include this Prayer of Nature ought to be kept in mind. - E. Father of Light, on thee I call! Thou see'st my soul is dark within ; No shrine I seek, to sects unknown; Spare, yet amend, the faults of youth. Let bigots rear a gloomy fane, Let priests, to spread their sable reign, Shall man confine his Maker's sway To Gothic domes of mouldering stone? Thy temple is the face of day; Earth, ocean, heaven thy boundless throne. (1) Shall man condemn his race to hell Shall each pretend to reach the skies, (1) The poet appears to have had in his mind one of Mr. Southey's juvenile pieces, beginning, "Go, thou, unto the house of prayer, I to the woodlands will repair."-E Shall these, by creeds they can't expound, Shall those, who live for self alone, And live beyond the bounds of Time? Father! no prophet's laws I seek,– Yet will I pray, for thou wilt hear! Thou, who canst guide the wandering star Through trackless realms of æther's space; Who calm'st the elemental war, Whose hand from pole to pole I trace : Thou, who in wisdom placed me here, Who, when thou wilt, can take me hence, Ah! whilst I tread this earthly sphere, Extend to me thy wide defence. To Thee, my God, to thee I call! By thy command I rise or fall, If, when this dust to dust's restored, How shall thy glorious name adored But, if this fleeting spirit share With clay the grave's eternal bed, To Thee I breathe my humble strain, TO EDWARD NOEL LONG, ESQ. (1) DEAR LONG, in this sequester'd scene, (I) This young gentleman, who was with Lord Byron both at Harrow and Cambridge, afterwards entered the Guards, and served with distinction in the expedition to Copenhagen. He was drowned early in 1809, when on his way to join the army in the Peninsula; the transport in which he sailed being run foul of in the night by another of the convoy. "Long's father," says Lord Byron, "wrote to me to write his son's epitaph. I promised - but I had not the heart to complete it. He was such a good, amiable being as rarely remains long in this world; with talent and accomplishments, too, to make him the more regretted." Diary, 1821.-E Which spreads the sign of future peace, Some lurking envious fear intrude, Yes, I will hope that Time's broad wing Will shed around some dews of spring: But if his scythe must sweep the flowers Which bloom among the fairy bowers, Where smiling Youth delights to dwell, And hearts with early rapture swell; If frowning Age, with cold control, Confines the current of the soul, Congeals the tear of Pity's eye, Or checks the sympathetic sigh, Or hears unmoved misfortune's groan, And bids me feel for self alone; |