Alexandria Gazette & Advertiser

POETRY.

ELEGANT STANZAS.
Written by an officer, a long resident in India, on his return to England.

I came, but they had pass'd away,
The fair in form, the pure in mind—
And like a stricken deer I stray,
Where all are strange and none are kind;
Kind to the word and wearied soul,
That pants, that struggles for repose;
O that my steps had reach'd the goal
Where earthly sighs and sorrows close.
Years have pass'd o'er me like a dream,
That leaves no trace on memory's page
I look around me, and I seem
Some relict of a former age.
Alone as in a stranger clime,
When stranger voices mock my ear,
—I mock the lagging course of time,
Without a wish, a hope, a fear.
Yet I had hopes—and they have fled)
And I had fears—were all too true:
My wishes too—but they are dead,
And what have I with life to do?
'Tis but to wear a weary load,
I may not, dare not, cast away;
To sigh for one small still abode,
Where I may sleep as sweet as they;—
As they, the loveliest of their race,
Whose grassy tombs my sorrow steep:
Whose worth my soul delights to trace—
Whose very loss 'tis sweet to weep.
To weep beneath the silent moon,
With none to chide, to hear, to see—
Life can bestow no dearer boon
On one whom death disdains to free.
I leave the world that knows me not,
To hold communion with the dead:
And fancy consecrates the spot
Where fancy's softest dreams are shed.
I see each shade, all silvery white,
I hear each spirit's melting sigh;
I turn to clasp those forms of light,
And the pale morning chills my eye.
But soon the last dim morn shall rise,
The lamp of life burns feebly now—
When stranger hands shall close my eyes,
And smooth my cold and dewy brow.
Unknown I lived—so let me die;
No stone nor monumental cross
Tell where his nameless ashes lie,
Who sighed for gold, and found it dross.