Farewell from the Attic Chest to her Friends on the Close of the Season
Four times when Summer led her smiling train,
Your Chest has bade her fostering friends adieu,
As oft has hailed stern Winter’s icy reign.
Her brow of gloom and melancholy hue;
Her call revived my slumbering first again
And bade my fading laurels sprout anew;
Still higher than before their stems aspire,
And brighter beam the renovated fire.
Again Adieu! — yet with no throb of fear
Lest time should tear my laurels from the spot
Whence erst they flourished — lest the coming year
Should see me droop neglected and forgot,
I bid farewell — Hope’s siren voice I hear
Who sings in sweeter notes my future lot
Undraws the veil of Time with gentle hand
And bids the lovely scenes in prospect fair expand
How few like me, each year revolving view,
Hope’s embryo buds in blushing beauty blow;
Her fairy dreams of promised pleasure true
That brightly beam, nor vanish as they glow
Not evanescent as the morning dew
Firm as the iceplant’s studded gems they grow,
How bright my last career — how bright the ray
That gilds the evening of this glorious day.
The Sun that sets in ocean’s sparkling tide
And pours a flood of crimson o’er the skiess
Shall from the Eastern portals open wide
And bright in renovated splendor rise.
Earth feels his genial power; the bursting tide
Of heat and life her countless tribes supplies
The winged hours fly round his radiant car,
And scatter light thro’ all the ambient air.
Thus when your circle thickens round the fire,
The cheerful scene to trueborn Britons dear
When meeting friends the social hours require,
To cheat the moments of the lingering year,
When the long evening wakes the idle lyre,
And calls me forth, the friendly ring to cheer,
Then light shall burst upon my gloomy cell,
To gild my glorious course — till then farewell.
Farewell — and O! be every pleasure yours
That summer, or your own rich minds can give,
Nor be her glory transient as her flowers,
But let her charms in strains immortal live
Her yellow meads, her streams, her shadowy bowers,
Her fragrant fruits that the parch’d lip revive,
Yours be the joys content and health diffuse
And peace and virtue, and the favouring Muse.