To H——

The firstlings of my simple song
Were offer'd to thy name;
Again the altar, idle long,
In worship rears its flame.
My sacrifice of sullen years,
My many hecatombs of tears,
No happier hours recall —
Yet may thy wandering thoughts restore
To one who ever loved thee more
Than fickle Fortune's all.
And now, farewell! — and although here
Men hate the source of pain,
I hold thee and thy follies dear,
Nor of thy faults complain.
For my misused and blighted powers,
My waste of miserable hours,
I will accuse thee not: —
The fool who could from self depart,
And take for fate one human heart,
Deserved no better lot.
I reck of mine the less, because
In wiser moods I feel
A doubtful question of its cause
And nature, on me steal —
An ancient notion, that time flings
Our pains and pleasures from his wings
With much equality —
And that, in reason, happiness
Both of accession and decrease
Incapable must be.
Unwise, or most unfortunate,
My way was; let the sign,
The proof of it, be simply this —
Thou art not, wert not mine!
For 'tis the wont of chance to bless
Pursuit, if patient, with success;
And envy may repine,
That, commonly, some triumph must
Be won by every lasting lust.
How I have lived imports not now;
I am about to die,
Else I might chide thee that my life
Has been a stifled sigh;
Yes, life; for times beyond the line
Our parting traced, appear not mine,
Or of a world gone by;
And often almost would evince,
My soul had transmigrated since.
Pass wasted flowers; alike the grave,
To which I fast go down,
Will give the joy of nothingness
To me, and to renown:
Unto its careless tenants, fame
Is idle as that gilded name,
Of vanity the crown,
Helvetian hands inscribe upon
The forehead of a skeleton.
List the last cadence of a lay,
That, closing as begun,
Is govern'd by a note of pain,
O, lost and worshipp'd one!
None shall attend a sadder strain,
Till Memson's statue stand again
To mourn the setting sun, —
Nor sweeter, if my numbers seem
To share the nature of their theme.