This "summer of the mind," alas!
Must have its autumn--leafless, bare,
When all these pleasing phantoms pass,
And end in winter, age, and care!
Such, such is life, the moral tells--
The tempest, and its sunny smiles,
A warning voice the cheerful bells,
The knell of death, our youth beguiles!
SENT FOR THE ALBUM
OF THE REV. G---- C----,
With a Drawing of the Head of an Eminent Artist.
Dear Sir, you remember, when Herod of Jewry
Had given a ball, how a shocking old fury
Demanded, so bent was the vixen on slaughter.
The head of St. John at the hand of her daughter:
Now do not detest me, nor hold me in dread,
Because, like King Herod, I send you a head:
Not a saint's, by-the-bye, although _taken from life_,
But a head of my friend, by the hand of my wife.
WRITTEN
UNDER AN ELEGANT DRAWING OF A DEAD CANARY BIRD,
By Miss A.M. TURNER, Daughter of the Eminent Engraver.
_Death_ to the very _life!_ not the closed eye,
Not those small paralytic limbs alone,
But every feather tells so mournfully
Thy fate, and that thy _little_ life has flown.
Manhood forbids that I should weep, and yet
Sadness comes o'er my spirit, and I stand
Gazing intensely, and with mute regret,
Turn from the wonder of the artist's hand.
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