! Autumn! Winter! then how vividly each came!
The moonlight pure, the starlight soft, and the noontide sheath'd in flame;
The dewy morning with her birds, and evening's gorgeous dyes,
As if the mantles of the blest were floating through the skies.

I laid me down, but not in sleep--and Memory flew away
To mingle with the sounds and scenes the world had shown by day;
Now listening to the lark, she stray'd across the flowery hill,
Where trickles down from bowering groves the brook that turns the mill;
And now she roam'd the city lanes, where human tongues are loud,
And mix the lofty and the low amid the motley crowd,
Where subtle-eyed philosophy oft heaves a sigh, to scan
The aspiring grasp, and paltry insignificance of man!

'Mid floods of light in festal halls, with jewels rare bedight,
To music's soft and syren sounds, paced damosel with knight;
It seem'd as if the fiend of grief from earthly bounds was driven,
For there were smiles on every cheek that spake of nought but heaven;
But, from that gilded scene, I traced the revellers one by one,
With sad and sunken features each, unto their chambers lone;
And of that gay and smiling crowd whose bosoms leapt to joy,
How many might there be, I ween'd, whom care did not annoy?

Some folded up their wearied eyes to dark unhallow'd dreams--
The soldier to his scenes of blood, the merchant to his schemes:
Pride, jealousy, and slighted love, robb'd woman of her rest;
Revenge, deceit, and selfishness, sway'd man's unquiet breast.
Some, turning to the days of youth, sigh'd o'er the sinless time
Ere passion led the heart astray to folly, care, and crime;
And of that dizzy multitude, from found or fancied woes,
Was scarcely one whose slumbers fell like dew upon the rose!

Then turn'd I to the lowly hearth, where scarcely labour brought
The simplest and the coarsest meal that craving nature sought;
Above, outspread a slender roof, to shield them from the rain,
And their carpet was the verdure with which nature clothes the plain;
Yet there the grateful housewife sat, her infant on her knee,
Its small palms clasp'd within her own, as if likewise pray'd he;
For ere their fingers brake the bread, from toil incessant riven,
Son, sire, and matron bow'd their heads, and pour'd their thanks to Heaven.

What, then, I thought, is human life, if all that thus we see
Of pageantry and of parade devoid of pleasure be!