What happiness!-Who can enjoy alone?
Or, all enjoying, what contentment find?
THOU first of human feelings, social love!
I must obey thy powerful sympathies,
E'en though I've often found that those my heart
Most priz❜d, were creatures of its warm desires,
Rather than aught which other men less prone
To affections swift, transforming quality,
Might worthy deem or excellent!
Thy tainted scenes, proud city, now detain
My restless feet. Twill sooth a vacant hour
To trace what dim inexplicable links
Of hidden nature have inclin'd my soul
To love what heretofore it most abhorr❜d.
When first a little one I mark'd far off
The wreathed smoke that capp'd thy palaces:
Oh what a joyous fluttering of the heart,
Oh what exulting hopes were mine! Methought,'
Within thy walls there must be somewhat strange,'
Surpassing greatly any wondrous dream,
Of fairy grandeur, which my childhood lov'd.
And when I heard the busy hum of men,
And saw the passing crowd in endless ranks,
The many-colour'd equipage, and steeds
Gaily caparison'd; it seem'd to me
As though all living things were centered here.
But other feelings soon transformed these shews
To meerest emptiness, e'en till my soul
Would sicken at their presence; for I've sought
To cherish quiet musings, and disdain'd
The idle forms which play upon the sense,
Yet give the heart no comfortable thoughts.
Yes, I have sought the solitary walk,
Where I might number every absent friend,
And give a tear to each: I've nurs'd my soul
With strangest contemplation, till it wore
A sad and lonely character, untouch'd
By th' operation of external shapes.
Yet, London, now thou'rt pleasant-'tis e'en so!
For I am sick of hopes that stand aloof
From common sympathy; for I am sick
Of pampering delicate exclusive loves,
And silly dreams of rapture, that would pull
The shrinking hand from every honest grasp,
The shrinking heart from every honest pledge,
Not trickt in gracefulness poetical!
Sometimes, 'tis true, when I have pac'd the haunts
Of crowded occupation, I have felt
A sad repression, looking all around,
Nor catching one known face amid the throng,
That answer'd mine with cordial pleasantness.
I've often thought upon some absent friend,
E'en till an assur'd hope that he was nigh
Has made me lift my head, and stretch my arm,
To gaze upon the form, and grasp the hand,
Of him who lived in my wayward dream.
And I have look'd, and all has been to me
A crowded desolation! Not one being,
'Mid that incessant and perturbed throng,
Dreamt of my hopes or fears! Then have I pac'd
With breathless eagerness; and if an eye
Has met my gaze, wherein some trace remote
Lived of one on whom my heart has lean'd,
A gentle thrilling of awaken'd love
Has warm'd my breast, and haply kindled there
A dream of parted days, that so my feet,
It seem'd to me, mov'd not in solitude.
Thus can the heart, by its strange agency,
Extract divine emotion from the scene
Most barren and uncouth; which images
To him who cannot love,-who never felt
That ever active warmth commingling still
Its own existence with all present things,-
Nought beside forms, and bodily substances.
Methinks he acts the purposes of life,
And fills the measure of his destiny
With best approved wisdom, who retires
To some majestic solitude; his mind
Rais'd by those visions of eternal love,
The rock, the vale, the forest, and the lake,
The sky, the sea, and everlasting hills.
He best performs the purposes of life,
And fills the measure of his destiny,
Who holds high converse with the present God (Not mystically meant), and feels him ever Made manifest to his transfigur'd soul.
But few there are who know to prize such bliss;
And he who thus would raise his mortal being,
Must shake weak nature off, and be content
To live a lonely uncompanion'd thing,
Exil'd from human loves and sympathies.
Therefore the city must detain my feet;
For I would sometimes gaze upon a face
That smiles on me, and speaks intelligibly
Of one that answers all my hopes and fears.
Nor is to me the sentiment of life
Less acceptable, when I contemplate
Numberless living and progressive beings,
Acting the infinite varieties
Of this miraculous scene.
For though the dim
And inharmonious ministrations here,
Of heavenly wisdom, may confound the sense,
The partial sense of man, my soul is glad;
Trusting that all, yea every* living thing,
Shall understand, in the appointed time,
And praise the inwoven mystery† of sin;
Losing each hope and each propellent fear
In perfect bliss; and "God be all in all!"
* See Hartley "On the final Happiness of all Mankind."
"For the mystery of iniquity doth already work."
St. Paul to Timothy.
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