Meanwhile, outflock, in mix'd confusion,
All Fiam's household to the stranger; And with the help of Chang and Ching, Beneath their roof the saint they bring.
A surgeon call'd-they find the danger
Is less than they conceived,--a groan
At least announces life not flown;
They clear the blood that darkly oozes
Out from the scull--and their conclusion
Is, that a very sad contusion,
A broken leg--a score of bruises,
Make of the damages they note all—
The items of the pleasing total,
Far from enough to cure, I'm doubting,
So great a patriot of mob-spouting.
Here for the present, to the care
Of Fiam and the brother-pair,
We'll leave poor Hodges, to discover
Virtue in Bancok-and recover.
As Chang and Ching, for ever by him,
Each with a different comfort ply him.
Ching plays at cup-and-ball t' amuse
The dulness of the flagging hours;
Collects each little scrap of news,
And brings him sugar-plums, and flowers. While in a mystic murmur, Chang Instructs him with a wise harangue; Talks of vain mortals' vague solicitudes, And that fresh subject, Fate's vicissitudes : Varying the novel theme with stories, How other legs were broke before his. Hodges, in turn, the twain delights With noble deeds, and wondrous sights, Things done, and doing, which the fame
Of other countries quite extinguish;
And prove no people ought to claim
A moment's notice-save the English.
"T is clear to see, that tales like these
Must win upon our Siamese ;
And soon that strong and keen desire,
Which rarely youth resists--to roam,
Prey'd on their hearts, and made them tire
Daily of happiness, and home.
Alas! in vain in every shore,
For something never won, we yearn!
Why needs this waste of toil, before
Life's last, yet simplest truth we learn?
Oh! that our early years would own
The moral of our burial-stone:
The true to kalon of the breast-
The elixir of the earth is―Rest!
As birds that seek athwart the main,
Strange lands where happier seasons reign,
Where to soft airs the rich leaf danceth,
And laughs the gay beam where it glanceth--
Glancing o'er fruits whose purpling sheen
May court the rifling horde unseen;
For there Earth, Air, and Sun conspire
To curb, by sating, man's desire▬▬
And man, half careless to destroy,
May grant ev'n Weakness to enjoy.
So Hope allures the Human Heart,
So shows the land and spreads the chart;
So wings the wishes of the soul,
And colours, while we seek, the goal!
The shore (as on the wanderers fly)
They left-hath melted into sky.
The shore they seek-Alas! the star
That guides on high, seems scarce so far.
With weary wing, but yearning breast,
Unlike the dove they find no rest.
The broad Sea with its aching sound,
The desert Heaven hath girt them round.
On, on!-and still the promised shore
Seems far--and faithless as before;
And some desponding droop behind,
And some are scattered by the wind;
And some-perchance who best might guide-
Sink--whelm'd the first--beneath the tide.
Thus on, the hearts that hope decoys,
Fly o'er life's waste to fancied joys,
The goal unseen-the home forsaken,
Dismay'd, but slow, from dreams we waken.
The friends--with whom we left the shore,
Most lov'd-most miss'd, are seen no more:
And some that sink, and some disparted,
But leave the lingerers weary-hearted.
On-onward still-how few remain
Faint-flagging-of that buoyant train,
With glittering hue, and daring wing,
And bosom that must burst or sing.
On-on! a distant sail appears—
It comes-exhaustion conquers fears ;
And on the deck, a willing thrall,
The wearied hopeless, victims fall:
And ev'n amid their dreadest foes
Feel less of peril than repose!
And thus--oh! thus! no more deceived--
Worn out, tamed, baffied, and bereaved,
From all our young life loved self-banished;
The glory from the dull wing vanished;
Bowed by the distance, and the gale,
The hardest faint, the boldest fail.
Whate'er the spot that proffers rest
We drop the Victim or the Guest;
And after all our wanderings past,
Feel Death has something sweet at last.
|