Mountains themselves by length of years decay—
With ebbs and flows is the rough Ocean tost;
In heaven the Moon is for a season lost,
But thou, amidst the fullness of thy joy,
The same art ever, blazing in the sky!
When tempests wrap the world from pole to pole,
When vivid lightnings flash and thunders roll,
Thou far above their utmost fury borne,
Look'st forth in beauty, laughing them to scorn.
But vainly now on me thy beauties blaze—
Ossian no longer can enraptured gaze!
Whether at morn, in lucid lustre gay,
On eastern clouds thy yellow tresses play,
Or else at eve, in radiant glory drest,
Thou tremblest at the portals of the west,
I see no more! But thou mayest fail at length,
Like Ossian lose thy beauty and thy strength,
Like him—but for a season—in thy sphere
To shine with splendour, then to disappear!
Thy years shall have an end, and thou no more
Bright through the world enlivening radiance pour,
But sleep within thy clouds, and fail to rise,
Heedless when Morning calls thee to the skies!
Then now exult, O Sun! and gaily shine,
While Youth and Strength and Beauty all are thine.
For Age is dark, unlovely, as the light
Shed by the Moon when clouds deform the night,
Glimmering uncertain as they hurry past.
Loud o'er the plain is heard the northern blast,
Mists shroud the hills, and 'neath the growing gloom,
The weary traveller shrinks and sighs for home.

1806.
[First published, Atlantic Monthly, December, 1898. [2]]

LINES TO MR. HODGSON.
WRITTEN ON BOARD THE LISBON PACKET.